LL-L: "Etymology" [E/Norwegian] LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.1999 (03)

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From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: Seeking Cognates

Dear Lowlanders,

There is an expression in Dialectal English which is generally written as
_gormless_, but which is occasionally - and in my humble opinion, more correctly
- transcribed _gaumless_. Although the use of the word seems to have become
widespread, it would seem to originate from the north of England, being
especially common in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Now, _gormless_, or _gaumless_ is used to refer slightly lightheartedly, and
with a degree of empathy, to a simpleton, one who finds it difficult to complete
any task successfully.

Now, Lowlanders, the point of this longwinded introduction is that I wonder if
any of you know of any possible cognates in your respective Lowland languages.

Obviously, the suffix -less means just that, so the actual root we are looking
for is _gaum_  (begrudgingly ? _gorm_). Now I do seem to recall that there is a
Gothic verb _gauma_, meaning 'to understand', and it seems to me to be cognate,
but proof from other Germanic languages would help.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, by the way, suggests that the word
derives from Irish Gaelic. The derivation it gives, however, seemed to me to be
very tenuous, and in any case the influence of Irish (or indeed Scottish) Gaelic
on the northern counties of England is virtually negligible.(Brythonnic Celtic
influence, however, could not be ruled out.)

Anyway, over to you,

Dr M. Suleiman

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Etymology

Dear Muhammed,

Lowlands-L'a hos,geldiniz!  I am pleased you recently joined the List and are
making such an interesting debut already.

I found your inquiry very interesting.  I have come across this word 'gaumless'
only once or twice in Yorkshire talk.  I remember wondering about it then.  So,
thanks for the ball.  I'll be the first to dribble it for a minute, and I'm sure
others will take it from there.

My first thought upon reading your explanation and your mentioning Gothic
_gauma_ 'to understand' was "Could this be a North Germanic loan?"  Certainly,
Viking invasion of those parts of the British Isles make this a distinct
possibility.  I should also mention that I could come up with nothing that looks
like a cognate in both Dutch and Low Saxon, nor in German.  Unfortunately, I
don't have an Old Norse or Icelandic dictionary within easy reach right now, so
I started off with the two Modern Norwegian languages
(http://dina.uio.no/ordboksoek.html), hoping that at least Neo-Norwegian
(Nynorsk) has preserved a cognate if there is one.  Lo and behold!  This is what
I came up with:

"Artikkelen i Nynorskordboka om ordet 'gaum'
gaum m1 (norr gaumr ; smh med I gå ) ans, akt, merksemd; (etter)tanke gje g- på
el.
etter noko leggje merke til, anse (vel) etter, ta ad notam / gje g-! høyr etter!
/ lese boka med g-"

"Artikkelen i Bokmålsordboka om ordet 'gaum'
gaum -en (norr gaumr ) dial: ans, akt, oppmerksomhet gi g- på noe"

What is of interest to us here is that in both Norwegian languages _gaum_,
derived from Old Norse /gaum+r/ _gaumr_, basically means 'attention', as seen in
the phrases _Gje gaum!_ 'Pay attention!' and _lese boka med gaum_ 'to read the
book attentively/with great interest' in Neo-Norwegian (Nynorsk, a conglomerate
of older dialects that are less Danish-influenced) and _gi gaum på noe_ 'to pay
attention to something' in Dano-Norwegian (Bokmål).  I do not know if there are
remnants of it in other Scandinavian varieties, but I do know that the usual way
of rendering 'attention' is _uppmärksamhet_ in Swedish and _opmærksomhed_ in
Danish, both cognates of Dano-Norwegian _oppmerksomhet_ and Neo-Norwegian
_merksemd_, assumedly going back to a Middle Low Saxon (Middle Low German) loan
(*/up+merk+zaam+heit/ *_upmerksamhêt_ ~ */op+merk+saam+heit/ *_opmerksamhêt_).
I assume _gaum_ vis-à-vis the Low Saxon loan is something of an archaism
preserved in certain phrases.  One might compare this to (Old English _hêd_ >)
Modern English _heed_ (as in _to pay heed_ 'to pay attention') vis-à-vis
Romance-derived _attention_ and (Old English _hêdan_ >) _to heed_ vis-à-vis _to
pay attention to_.

Thus, my theory is that we are dealing with the root _gaum_ as a Scandinavian
loan, the basic meaning of _gaumless_ being "without attention," later to be
nominalized to mean "someone who pays no attention (and thus fails in a given
task)."  The Modern Low Saxon (Low German) equivalents I can think of are
colorful: _Dööskopp_, _Döösbaddel_ ("dozing head/Bartholomew"), _Dröömklaas_
("dreaming Nick"), _Drömelklaas_ ("daydreaming Nick"), and perhaps
_Fall-in('n)-Brie_ ("fall-in-the-gruel"), all of which also tend to have that
somewhat lighthearted air about them, at least when used in not too unfriendly a
tone.

Perhaps this will help take us a bit farther ahead.

Thanks again for joining Lowlands-L and for posting your problem.

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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