LL-L "Etymology" 2006.03.01 (02) [D/E/V]

Wed Mar 1 16:54:36 UTC 2006

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01 March 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Ron,

On Sun February 26 2006 22:07, you wrote:

> What's the etymology of this _schots_?

I think nobody really knows for sure. "Schots" always connotes negativity,
for example:

"Da laa dàà allegàà _schots_ en schiëf" (also: "'t Laa dàà schedderwedder", 
or
"'t Laa dàà allegàà overénne") = the place was a complete shambles

One can also say:

"A èè ma dàà nogal schots g'antwood" (B)

when a person replied in an unfriendly and scornful way. Middle Low
German knew that word "schutsch" (= stupid, rude, boorish) too, and 
according to
"De Vries", it may have been derived from "schieten" ("to shoot" (E)). Far 
cry, I thought at first.
But then it started to dawn upon me that we have another word, 
"schietlappig",
pertaining to the same semantic field, e.g.:

"Wa ne schietlappigen boek és ma da!"

said of a quirky, unpredictable guy (also of horses that are easily
startled). Mmm. The object itself, a "schietlap", is just a "leather strap"
attached to the left arm of an archer for protection and has no particular,
weird shape, so I think the influence must have come from the verb
"verschieten" (southern Dutch for "verschrikken", "to frighten"). The 
meaning
of "verschieten" could have evolved like this:

"popping out" > "jumping away quickly" > "shifting, fading colors" > 
"looking pale because of fright"

OK...so a sudden, swift and impromptu movement is not considered too
courteous around here. Seems to frighten people apparently *s*.

For the record, these are all wild guesses on my behalf.

More interesting could be the etymology that Kiliaan was proposing: he
mentioned the Italian word "sciocco" (as a cognate of "schots"), meaning 
"foolish, dumb".
Presently, Devoto derives "sciocco" from "(e)xsu(c)care" = "suck
out". As such, "sciocco", means "state of being sucked out, being bland and 
tasteless".
I doubt this proposed relationship, because the final vowel sounds like -k-
(nowadays anyway), which differs pretty much from -ts- in "schots" (unless 
we were
dealing with Romans "insulting" palatalizing Frisians/Anglians *s*). By the
way, Brabantish has "sjokken" for "to suck" (E).

Only a short step to the _queer_  world of  _querdenkers_, _thwarting_ the
evil powers that be?
Funnily enough, "queer" was first attested in
Scottish...meaning "out of sorts"...and..."drunk". Full circle *s*.
Conclusion: left-handed, cross-thinking Scotsmen must always have had a
hard time...going against the grain.

Seriously, "left" often meant trouble. Just a few examples: Dutch has the 
words "slinks" (cunning, sly) and "sinister" (< sinistra (I) = left (E)).
“Left” stood for “bent > bad” (German “links”, “lenken”, “Gelenke”; English 
“crook”), “low” (see next paragraph, home of the dead…north) and “weak” 
(English “left”, Dutch “loof” (= tired), Kiliaan “luft, lucht, loeft” (= 
left), ? ~ Flemish “loeften, loefti” (= clumsy bumpkin)).
"Right", on the other hand, was considered normal, just and good...right? 
*s*

Today, I found a possible reason for this dichotomy…cults. Religion was 
oriented to the east, and therefore, when one was facing east, the left hand 
was associated with the north, the demonic underworld; call it hell. As a 
result, sacred rites (offering, accepting food, writing) were done with the 
right hand (in Egypt already), leading to depreciation of the left hand.

Ah well…makes me wonder how people living east of the Middle East value(d) 
their hands. As far as I know, left is also “taboo” there…but for another 
reason. Your turn to explain this Ron *s*.

Greetings,

Luc Hel-linckx

PS: The "divers ~ dwers" analogy keeps puzzling me...could some Romance 
speakers ever have stressed _both_ syllables?
I wonder, 'cause if originally (Romance) stress was only on the first 
syllable, it would have turned the -e- schwa (in Germanic), and favoring the 
second one exclusively, would imply a stress shift.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Wow, Luc!  Thanks, but that's a lot to digest (not to mention _mod_ ~ _mud_ 
to wade through)!
;-)

As for this _schiet_ thing ... well, remember that, like Low Saxon, Flemish 
retains <ie> [i:] where Dutch has <ij> and German has <ei>.  So there are 
the homophonous verbs _schieten_ 'to shit' and _schieten_ 'to shoot', and I 
have a feeling the latter, together with its respective relatives, has been 
"standing in" for the former (cf. English "Shoot!")  In Low Saxon, the noun 
_Schiet_ also means 'dirt', 'filth', 'inferior thing', 'exaspirating 
situation', is not as vulgar as its equivalents in Dutch, German and 
English.

Well, I'm still in love with my _Schutt_ 'rubble' hypothesis.  So there!

> PS: The "divers ~ dwers" analogy keeps puzzling me...could some
> Romance speakers ever have stressed _both_ syllables?

Old French seems to have had "final stress"* already, and Old French loans 
in Middle English started off with that sort of stress pattern.  Those nouns 
that came to be fully nativized, i.e., phonologically fully adapted, then 
took on native, i.e., Germanic, noun stress, which by default falls on the 
first syllable.

[* excluding _-e_]

You might therefore argue that in Modern English "hotel" [hoU"tEl] is not 
fully nativized (as opposed to ["hoUtEl] in some American dialects), while 
"hostel" ["hOst=l] and "hospital" ["hOspIt=l] are, and the pronunciation 
["Sæl at t] of _shalot_ ~ _shallot_ is the fully nativized equivalent of the 
pronunciation [S@"lQt], while _eschalot_ [ES@"lQt] is the least nativized, 
the source being French _eschalotte_.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: In my experience, the tabooing of "left" is not as strong in Eastern 
Asia as in Western Asia, or, better to say, "the rest of Eurasia."  I wonder 
if it is strongest in places in which people eat with their fingers and thus 
need to assign to their hands "clean" and "dirty" tasks (which in Europe was 
still the case relatively recently, while chopsticks have been used in East 
Asia for a long, long time).

----------

From: Roland Desnerck <desnerck.roland at skynet.be>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2006.02.28 (04) [E]

Beste Lowlanders:
In het Oostends:
mud:zelfde betek. als Engels; wad is mud? tgonne ad e boer uut ze gat 
sjhudt!
Oud-Oostends voor "ijsschots": ieskorre.
Oostends vervant met "kuddel": knuttel (Nederlands keutel);
keuneknuttels: "konijnekeutels"
als men iets schuinte wil geven, iets wil doen hellen, zegt men: je moe
sjheute geevn;
Kruuwn (kruien) bestaat bij ons in vele betek., zo in de branding op garnaal
gaan vissen; kruuwn op de akker kan  ook; kruuwn betekent altijd "zwaar
arbeiden"
Mul en muln kennen wij ook:
vb. koekemul: kruimels van koekjes;
muln: een lek in de romp van een vaartuig of in een sluisdeur proberen te
dichten door een mand met zaagkrullen, zaagmeel en vlasvezels onder water te
houden om aldus een spleet te dichten; (vgl; meel - mul).
Toetnoasteki
Roland Desnerck 

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