freten by sowe

Mon Mar 3 00:03:10 UTC 2008

At 3/2/2008 02:48 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Whoa! Now, I'm *really* glad that I didn't get out of the car while
>pigs were loose! But, seriously, folks, couldn't "freten" merely mean
>"eat, of animals," like German "fressen"?

IIRC, my junior high school German teacher told us that "essen" was
the polite term for humans, and if said of humans "fressen" had
connotations of voracity or messiness.  And at least one on-line
dictionary has "devour" for "fressen" (as well as "eat"), but not for
"essen".  But I'm no expert, which is why I asked about "freten" vs. "etan".

Joel

>-Wilson
>
>On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> >  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >  Subject:      Re: freten by sowe
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >  <html>
> >  <body>
> >  <font size=3>At 3/2/2008 10:08 AM, William Salmon wrote:<br>
> >  <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">There's a horrifying line in The
> >  Knight's Tale about a pig eating a<br>
> >  child.<br><br>
> >  The sowe freten the child right in the cradel...</blockquote><br>
> >  I assume "freten" (fressen) rather than (?) "eten"
> >  (essen) to make it more horrifying?<br><br>
> >  Joel</font></body>
> >  </html>
> >
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>
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