hamantashen

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/7/2002 11:47:33 AM, fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU writes:

<< Just on basic principles, I doubt seriously that "Mohntaschen" would have
changed to "Hamantaschen" by folk-etymology. Folk etymology tends not to
affect morphologically and semantically transparent lexemes, and
Mohntaschen is both. There's also not a lot of phonetic similarity between
"Mohn" and "Haman".

But that is just a seat-of-the-pants reaction. I don't know what the facts
are in this case.

Ben >>

I don't know German well enough to know what a German would say about the
transparency of "Mohntaschen," but I know that what is transparent to
foreigners is sometimes opaque to natives (e.g., CUPBOARD). I remember very
well remarking to a German friend how clever I thought that the German word
"der Handschuh" 'glove' is. He had no idea what I was talking about.