Q: "lanechtskipt" -- perhaps "lanDechtskip[e]t"?

[Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock]

Jackalope? Jersey Devil?


On Nov 11, 2013, at 11:12 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Q: "lanechtskipt" -- perhaps "lanDechtskip[e]t"?
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>
> Stephen Goranson wrote
>> wild guess: lynx cat
>
> Perhaps, but I have no evidence for or against.
>
> W Brewer wrote:
>> WAG from left field: Norwegian
>> (1) Looks Germanic.
>> (2) skip-et means 'the ship' in Norwegian.
>> (3) <the ship ...> sc. of the desert = camel.
>> (4) lanecht (?)
>> (5) Did the Vikings have camels? :)  (This is definitely more
>> plausible than Haitians.)
>
> Interestingly, the historian whose manuscript cites the one and only
> appearance of lanechtskipt also supposes "camel", but does not write
> why he so supposes.  (I will ask him.)  In the vein of Germanic,
> "echt" can mean "genuine, true"; but what about "lan"?
>
> The primary source must be the manuscript record of a meeting of the
> Boston Selectmen in 1735, and therefore subject to either
> mispronunciation or misspelling by the petitioner or misspelling or
> mistranscription by the clerk.
>
> Thus might the original have been "lanDechtskip[e]t" (confusing
> pronunciation of "nd" with "n"?) = "true ship of the land (earth,
> soil -- desert?)"?!  Google Translate detects Dutch, but does not
> translate "landechtskip[e]t" into English.  Perhaps a nonce
> word.  Dutch for "camel" is "kameel", which must long antedate the
> 18th century.  Google Web and Books do not find "landechtskip[e]t".
>
> In passing, Haitian Creole is perhaps more plausible than
> Norwegian.  A camel visiting Boston in February 1739 (perhaps the
> same beast as the "lanechtskipt" of 1735?) was advertised as "bound
> for the West Indies" in March; perhaps it had been in Haiti in
> 1735.  Of course, the advertisement may merely have been a come-on to
> induce visitors; a minister from Westborough visiting family in
> Boston went to see the camel the very next day.
>
> Why Dutch?  Like Norway, few camels resident. But a Dutch ship
> captain might have picked up a camel on a voyage to the Mediterranean region.
>
> hw gray wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> "lanechtskipt"
>>
>>
>> "Landesknecht"?
>
> "Country servant"?  No, a lanechtskipt must be a somewhat exotic
> animal (at least for Boston in the early 18th century).
>
> Joel
>
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