<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 29 June 2009 - Volume 04<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" lang="NL">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Etymology<br><br>Folks,<br><br>I wrote among other things:<br><br></span><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Old Saxon has <i>mako</i> (pronounced like <i>macko</i>) 'companion' which appears to go back to the same Indo-European root *<i>maĝ-</i> from which the "make" group comes. Apart from "make" it also means "knead", "squeeze", "stroke". So perhaps a <i>Macker</i> was originally someone you hugged and petted.</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">...</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Seriously though, I find it interesting that the word group "make"
also connoted "knead". I wonder if this has something to do with making
pottery.</span><br></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>This is what the <i>Oxford English Dicftionary</i> says about this:<br><br></span><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The word has been referred to the Indo-European base of Welsh <i>maeddu </i>to knead and Old Church Slavonic <i>mazati </i>to smear, and perhaps also of ancient Greek {μάσσειν (compare the perfect passive <i>μέμαγμαι</i>, MAGMA n., and MASS n.2), classical Latin <i>mācerāre </i>(see MACERATE v.), and Armenian <i>macanim </i>to cling to; but whether these last three, and indeed the West Germanic verb, should be referred to this base is not certain. The Indo-European base perhaps had the sense ‘to knead, work with the hands’ from which, it is hypothesized, the more general meaning ‘make’ may have developed. The Germanic verb is also widely considered to be related to the Germanic base of I-MAKE n. and MATCH n.1, probably an adjective with the sense ‘fit, suitable’. This adjective must be regarded as a derivative of the verb (perhaps via the sense ‘that which can be done’) if the above Indo-European etymology is accepted. An older view took the verb as a specifically West Germanic derivative (with the original sense ‘fit, arrange’) of the adjective (which, having reflexes in North Germanic, must go back to Common Germanic), and treated the further etymology as unknown.<br>
Old English <i>macian </i>and <i>gemacian </i>(which continued into Middle English as <i>imake</i>) are much less common than <i>don </i>DO v. (which is also the word most commonly used to translate Latin <i>facere</i>), <i></i>I-<i>gewyrcan </i>WURCHE v., and <i>wyrcan </i>WORK v. In Old English sense 1a appears to be the commonest use, followed by senses 34a and 33b (factitive), 38 (causative), and 43a. Development of senses within English was affected by various secondary borrowings and influences, e.g. from senses of Latin <i>facere </i>and <i>fierī</i>; no attempt has been made to document these exhaustively below. Since it is uncertain what the original meanings of the word were in West Germanic, the branches in the semantic arrangement below do not necessarily reflect the sequence in which the senses arose.<br>
</div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>So "match" as in "matchmaker" belongs to the same group.<br><br>I also found Old English <i>maka</i> 'companion', 'husband', thus a cognate of Old Saxon <i>mako</i>. So we are talking about a "match" here, about someone you are matched up with. I wonder if later <i>Macker</i> is based on a reanalyzed <i>-er</i> form of this. Furthermore, I wonder if the idea "to cling to", "to stick to" (see above) is implied here.<br>
<br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br>Seattle, USA</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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