Narratophilia (was Occam's tools amd earlier Halls of ivy)

[Dennis R. Preston]

Narratophilia is particularly rife in place-name legends. I did a study in
just a small area of Southern Indiana years ago and turned up wonders for
Buena Vista, Birdseye, Gnaw Bone, Laconia (the people there are laconic),
Palmyra (Palmyra is a Shawnee word meaning "big sink" because there are
lots of sink-holes in those parts, one of which a cow fell through one day
in plain sight of amazed bystanders), and on and on.

But the best is Paoli. A Swede ran the toll-road that went through there,
goes the story...

dInIs

>larry horn: "A more positive spin is that humans love explanations,
>especially elegant ones...I see it as stemming from the same impulse
>that leads to mythological and...religious "explanation" of the
>otherwise inexplicable."
>
>not to deny this, exactly, but to put a slightly different (but still
>positive) spin on it: humans love explanations that are *stories*,
>with *characters* in them.  (mythological and religious explanations
>largely fall into this category.)
>
>hmmm...maybe there's a place for a scholarly paper here.
>Narratotropism [or for a somewhat sexier title, The Narratophilic
>Impulse] in Popular Etymology.
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736