Maslow's grea t quotation

Laurence Urdang urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET
Sun Jun 24 14:26:11 UTC 2007


1. I lost the other response to your query, but he was right: the closest approximation is MAHS-lo ("lo" as in English low), not as I had the first syllable.
  2. If it was not clear earlier, the Polish word for 'butter' is maslo, with a barred "l": it has no "w" at the end, so there is no issue about its spelling.  While it is true that final "w" in Polish is pronounced "f," I don't see what that has to do with it, since there is no "w" in maslo.
  3. I am sure there are bilingual dictionaries on the Internet that show the pronunciations (or approximations) in the source languages, though they are probably given in IPA.
  L.Urdang
  Old Lyme

Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Dennis Preston

Subject: Re: Maslow's grea t quotation
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no evidence that the Polish word for butter and the root of
the name Maslow(ski) are etymologically connected. Please see my
earlier message; you are mostly OK here, but remember that final
Polish "w" is devoiced, and the name would end in (something like)
"off."

dInIs


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Urdang
>Subject: Re: Maslow's grea t quotation
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Yes, maslo is Polish for 'butter.' It is pronounced something like
>"mass woe": the "l" is so-called "dark," hence pronounced like an
>English "w"; there is no "w" at the end, for that would make it
>"mass love," "w" being pronounced (as in most Slavic and some
>Germanic languages) as "v." The second vowel is more like "aw" than
>the "o" in "woe."
> Of course God only knows what happens when the spelling reaches
>American hands.
> Larry
>
>RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
>Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20[ADS-L]=20Maslow's=20grea?
>= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?t=20quotation?=
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Is "Maslow" the Polish word for 'butter'?
>
>In a message dated 5/24/07 1:38:30 PM, goranson at DUKE.EDU writes:
>
>
>> >> According to the staggeringly informative Yale Book of Quotations, the
>> >> quotation is the following:
>> >>
>> >> It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat=20
>> everything
>> >> as if it were a nail.
>> >>=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissa=
>nce ch. 2
>> >> (1966)
>> >>
>> >> Fred Shapiro
>>=20
>> Small comments. FWIW, I looked for earlier citations, but found none. The
>> sentence (p.15-16) begins "I imagine it is tempting...." I found no=20
>> indication
>> in the book (acknowledgements, notes, etc.) that he is consciously quoting
>> someone earlier. Elsewhere he uses quotation marks relatively frequently.=20
>> The
>> text above this mentions an automatic car washing machine that is quite
>> good at
>> that job. "But it could do _only_ that, and everything else that got into=20
>> its
>> clutches was treated as if it were an automobile to be washed." The senten=
>ce
>> following our quotation: "In a word, I had either to give up my questions,=
>=20
>> or
>> else to invent new ways of answering them." I heard Maslow speak
>> decades ago at
>> Brandeis; an estimable man, I think.
>>=20
>> Stephen Goranson
>> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>>=20
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>=20
>>=20
>
>
>
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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