LL-L "Etymology" 2007.06.26 (03) [E]

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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  26 June 2007 - Volume 03

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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.06.25 (05) [A/E]

Dear Ron & All.

Subject: L-Lowlands "Etymology"

I stopped my last letter too soon. At what point does a simile become a
metaphor? When we say 'Bitter, soos ware gal'. we are using an expression
that might be literal or figurative: Either way it barely separates the
substance & the colour (healthy gall has a starkly yellow colour amidst the
dark reds of the liver-&-lights, & if cut & spilled it can spoil an entire
carcase with its bitter taint), & some of you who have had a rural
upbringing will not have escaped experience of the phenomenon that we share
with our pre-Victorian ancestors back into remote antiquity.

My thesis is that so strong a 'character' as that 'bitter as gall'  will
supervene any other metaphor in all the languages closest to the ancestral
or root tongue. It is only in English, with such a separation between the
word 'yellow' & the word 'gall', that the metaphore can be easily attached
to something else, like cowardice.

Ahem, my pennyworth.

Yrs'
Mark

P.S. Thanks, Ron, for all that Saxon: I LIKE IT. Quite beside the point, of
course, that as a mere aside it shot my thesis down in flames!

•

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