[Lexicog] A folk-etymology

[David Tuggy]

There is a whole family of these: paragolpes (stops-blows) 'bumper', 
parasol (stops-sun) 'parasol, umbrella', paraguas (stops-waters) 
'umbrella', parabrisas (stops-breezes) 'windshield', parafango 
(stops-muck) 'fender', etc. They are also, of course, part of a more 
extended family of structures like abrelatas (opens-cans) 'can-opener', 
rompecabezas (breaks-heads) 'puzzle'. One of my favorites is 
espantasuegras (scares-mothersinlaw) 'party-favor noisemaker'.

They're great fun. If any are interested I have a powerpoint on the web 
comparing and contrasting them with the (equally fun) English 
counterpart structures like scarecrow, skinflint, etc. 
(www.sil.org/~tuggyd, then check among the powerpoints. Sorry, Spanish 
only, though I could send an English non-pp version to any who'd like.) 
Their exocentricity —a paracaídas is neither stopping nor a fall; a 
scarecrow is neither scaring nor a crow— is of course a striking and 
fascinating feature of them.

Your "folk-etymology" is quite widespread (for all the para-N forms), 
and is by no means an outsider-only perspective: very many native 
speakers say they have always construed them that way, despite the ready 
availability of the V + Obj = Subject(/Instr) pattern to sanction the 
"official" analysis. And Spanish does have a well-established P + Obj = 
Subject pattern which lends plausibility to (= sanctions) the 
folk-etymology, as in sinvergüenza (without-shame) 'jerk, 
shameless/brazen person', anteojos (before-eyes) '(eye)glasses', or 
parabién (for-good) 'best wish(es)' (certainly not 'stop-good').

I for one have no wish to say that all those who think it is a 
preposition are wrong, and those who think it is a verb are right. Why 
cannot both be right? Why cannot people even take it both ways at once? 
Both make good sense. You carry a paraguas 'for' the rain, in order to 
'stop' it, if need be. It doesn't matter which analysis you have in mind 
or which your interlocutor has in mind, you'll still understand each 
other well enough for virtually all practical purposes. (The best answer 
to the question "Why not?" is, I suppose, that then we wouldn't know 
what to put in our dictionaries. In other words, the convenience of the 
analyst trumps the realities of the language.)

To my mind there are (at least) four related questions, none of which 
definitively answers the others, involved in deciding which analysis is 
"the right" one: synchronically (a) what is in a given speaker's mind 
(e.g. does this person think para 'stop' or para 'for', or some degree 
of both?); (b) what does this person think is in other speakers' minds; 
(c) generalizing (a-b), what is in fact in other speakers' minds, e.g. 
which proportion of them predominantly think 'stop' and which 
predominantly think 'for', and what do they think their interlocutors 
think; and (d) transporting (a-c) back into history, as well as can be 
done, what was the historical origin (and subsequent history) of the 
structure? None of these will necessarily give a clear-cut answer.

--David Tuggy


rtroike at email.arizona.edu wrote:
> Someone a few days ago (pardon, I've forgotten who) mentioned the Spanish
> word "paracaidas" ("parachute"), and etymologized the "para" as the
> preposition meaning "for" ("caida" is "fall"), citing "paraguas" ("umbrella")
> as a parallel ("for water").
>
> I had always folk-etymologized the "para" part the same way myself, and just
> happened to learn from a student recently that it is actually the verb
> "parar" ("to stop, prevent, hinder"). Checking the online OED for "parachute",
> I found that the "para" part here is from the same source, and the "chute" is
> cognate with the Spanish "caida".
>
>       Live and learn,
>
>       Rudy Troike
>
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>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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>   


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