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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Spanbock beat me to it.

I suspect it was a fake beast with a fanciful name.

People were more easily entertained back then.

JL


On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 2:46 PM, Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock <
spanbocks at verizon.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock <spanbocks at VERIZON.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Q: "lanechtskipt" -- perhaps "lanDechtskip[e]t"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jackalope? Jersey Devil?
>
>
> On Nov 11, 2013, at 11:12 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
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> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: Q: "lanechtskipt" -- perhaps "lanDechtskip[e]t"?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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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