FW: katzenjammer: M-W's Word of the Day

[Amy West]

I agree with Chris. In all my German classes I had heard it going
back conceptually & etymologically to "cat" -- imagine hissing,
snarling, that deep meow of males, etc. While Grimm's is dated, I
think that's the ety in Kluge (did I get the name right?) as well. My
copy of Wahrig doesn't give an ety, but it defines Katzenjammer as
"schlechte Stimmung als Nachwirkung eines Rausches; <auch>
Gewissenequal, Reue" note that the genus term of the def is
"Stimmung." Also, as Chris said, I don't think an infinitive makes
sense in the compound. Finally, and the weakest argument, I have
personal confidence in MW's etymological research, and I think that
if the Kotzen- origin were valid/recognized/accepted, it would have
been mentioned.

---Amy West

>Date:    Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:42:27 +0000
>From:    Chris F Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET>
>Subject: Re: FW: katzenjammer: M-W's Word of the Day
>
>sagehen wrote:
>>>     I enjoy Merriam-Webster's daily Word of the Day e-mails (distributed
>>>  free for the asking) but would suggest a possible correction to today's
>>>  item, Katzenjammer.  I say "possible" because I don't find it in my two
>>>  standard dictionaries of German etymology, but I do remember reading
>>>  somewhere that the "Katze(n)" part of Katzenjammer was originally "kotzen"
>>>  (= to puke). Kotzen fits the idea of a hangover very well, but since it's
>>>  a rather vulgar word, the similar sounding Katzen was euphemistically
>>>  substituted for it.
>>>
>>>  Gerald Cohen
>>>
>>   ~~~~~~~~~~
>>  It may have been something like this that my father told my brother & me
>>  when we were Katzenjammer Kids readers back in the 30s.  He had been   in
>>  Germany just before WWI (& nearly  caught there by the outbreak of the war)
>>  & brought back some examples of German comics, hardbound, one of which was
>>  clearly an influence on  KK.  My understanding of what he told us was that
>>  "Katzenjammer" meant catshit (a word unutterable by me in those days, of
>>  course).
>>  AM
>
>Well, Grimm don't agree, and the above smells quite a bit of folk
>etymology to me.

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