[Ads-l] "Say Uncle" - slight antedating

[Peter Reitan]

It's not clear whether anacol (or anacal) is related to "Uncle," but several texts, dictionaries, and an Irish grammar book between 1835 and 1915 spell it anacol.


This comment from A Concise Old Irish Grammar and Reader, Julius Pokorny, Dublin, Hodges, Figgis and Co., 1914 (HathiTrust) may explain the confusion:


"Enclitic vowels in open or closed syllables appear . . . between o coloured and neutral consonants or vice versa regularly as o, but sometimes as a.  e.g. feronn or ferann 'land' (fr. verono-), anacol 'protection.'"


Page 21.


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 9:48 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Say Uncle" - slight antedating

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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Subject:      Re: "Say Uncle" - slight antedating
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On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 1:12 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> the Irish word "anacol," which apparently means mercy or quarter.


This isn't true. There is no such "word" as _anacol_ in Irish. There is,
however, the word, _anacal_. Cf.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anacal
Irish[edit]
Noun[edit]
anacal m (genitive singular anacail)
1 verbal noun of _ainic_
2 _protection; deliverance, quarter_

whose sources are

http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/anacal
Focl=C3=B3ir Gaelige-B=C3=A9arla, =C3=93 D=C3=B3naill, 1977
English-Irish Dictionary. De Bhadhraithe, 1959

Pron. approx. "AH.n at kl" or "UH.n at kl"

That's close enough for government work, IMO.
--=20
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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