LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.25 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  25 July 2007 - Volume 04

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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.25 (02) [A/E]

Funny that we're discussing this word here now, yesterday evening I had a
discussion with my father on old, disappearing words, and we talked about
the word "velo" getting replaced by "fiets" here recently. "Velo" is still
alive and kicking but according to my feeling it has a frequency of less
than 1/3 in informal context (well, at least I myself use "fiets" in about
2/3 of the cases).

At the end of the 19th century it sometimes was called "flosjepeërd" in
Antwerp dialect, a folk-etymologic interpretation of "velocipede", where the
last part of the word was associated with a peërd/horse.

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From: wim <wkv at home.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.24 (03) [A/E]

From wim verdoold wkv at home.nl  zwolle city netherlands

Hi

about fiets,

I hear two stories about the origin of the word fiets..

One:  it comes from velocipede through flitsepede, the word was mangled till
it becaqme fiets..

Second: the inventor of the fiets is mr Fitzgerald in Scotland, hence Fitz.

The second story I have from my grandfather who died at the age of 93 ( in
1980).

He grew up in a volksbuurt in den Haag. (And only spoke the local dialect).
So it s probably volksethymologie .

Groeten uit Zwolle

wim
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.24 (03) [A/E]

Beste Elaine,

have a look here:

http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/fiets

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm

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From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.24 (03) [A/E]

Re Fiets, Hello Elaine.

The word fiets is apparently a bastardization of the French vitesse. To
speak with Martha Stewart, it is a good thing for us low-land folk. It gets
us easily from one place to another. The one remaining question is how to
get control of the wind. It seems to always come right at us. Jacqueline BdJ
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