(h/n)umble (was: Some data on herb, /hw-/)

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:16 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote:
>
>Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"?  With the
>h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be.
>    --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)

I've never heard "umble", except of course in contexts like "The
Ravens forced the Giants to eat umble pie", referring of course to
deer's innards.  Actually I see on checking in the OED that "(eat)
humble pie" is a nice illustration of metanalysis as well as folk
etymology, since the 'innards' or, as the OED puts it, 'inward parts'
meaning was originally associated with the form "numbles", which only
later turned into "umbles".  There's a cite for "numble pie" as late
as 1822 (Robin Hood is the eater, and the meaning is still literal).
It looks as though this metanalysis requires the shift in the context

a numble-pie > an umble pie > a(n) humble pie

since otherwise it's hard to know why a plural noun like "numbles"
would have undergone this reanalysis, which typically affects
singular count nouns (newt, nickname, nuncle, nother; orange, apron,
umpire).  But how DID "numbles" lose its n-?

larry