Folk etymology (Was Re: Swiss enchiladas)

[Beverly Flanigan]

I don't know who "they" are, but a former student of mine from die Schweiz
told me the term 'Schwyzertueuetsch' is commonly used (and note his
spelling, with 'y' and a doubled umlauted vowel, presumably to signal
lengthening ['ue'  substitutes for my lack of the umlaut diacritic--how do
you get that, Greg?]).  Trudgill, in his _Sociolinguistics_ (1995 ed., p.
101) uses this spelling also, but he does note that his example is "based
on Zurich speech."  My student taperecorded T's example for me, with
wonderful intonation and very prominent vowel lengthening; I play it every
year for my Sociolx class.


At 10:05 PM 10/29/99 -0400, you wrote:
>At 06:53 PM 10/29/99 -0400, bergdahl at ohio.edu wrote:
> >gell ya!
> >
> >>Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
> >>
> >>Schwizertütsch (so they've told me).
> >>
>
>Actually, to be more accurate, since you seem to be interested, they tell me
>there is not even such a thing as Schwizertütsch. There are only local
>dialects each of which is a bit different, e.g., Züritütsch (Zürich
>Deutsch). So they say....
>
>Since I'm being picky tonight, does anyone happen to have an early citation
>in English for the term "folk-etymology"? The earliest I have (a year
>earlier than OED2's earliest citation) is A. S. Palmer's 1882 volume
>_Folk-Etymology_ (gee, that must have been hard to find, Greg). I also have
>an 1876 citation of the term in German, i.e., Karl Andersen's monograph
>_Deutsche Volksetymologie_. Anything earlier than that?
>
>
>Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu