[Ads-l] Wot th'--- ?

[Laurence Horn]

> On Sep 12, 2019, at 5:22 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 2009 Jack Murnaghan _Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love...in Literature's
> Greatest Hits_ (N. Y.: Three Rivers Press) 50:  Every great empire
> mythologizes its own origins. ... The Brits would have us forget that
> English takes its name from the Engles (a people more Scandinavian than
> limey)

Hmmm.  Hard to forget what you never knew.  I assume we’re not really talking about the Engles (or maybe the Engels, the family of my late cousin-in-law), but rather the Angli, who hail from the neighborhood of Schleswig-Holstein, which given its proximity to Denmark does I suppose make it more Scandinavian than limey, but it’s a bit misleading.  

> and Britain from Breton (a region of France)

Ummm, not really.  But Briton/Britain/Breton are cognates, so partial credit.  

> and if not for a few
> hundred years of French-speaking on their isle, they'd be cockneyizing a
> Germanicized Icelandic.

Wha?

> 
> It's hard to keep up with all the new discoveries.
> 
> JL
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org