LL-L "Etymology" 2007.05.19 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  19 May 2007 - Volume 06

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From: Kevin Caldwell <kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.05.18 (04) [E]

> From: Jonny Meibohm <altkehdinger at freenet.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.05.19 (01) [E]
>
> He, Ron,

> going on with LS 'Huuk'/'Huke'/'Hoek'.

> This afternoon I had a meeting with some of my native neighbours, and I
told them about our/this thread.

> Very interesting!

> We came to the agreement that 'Huuk'/'Huke' denotes the *inner* side of an
'edge', of always an artificial/geometrical angle, e.g. of any kind of
building (so as in my formerly mentioned: 'dike').

Could English 'nook' be a reanalysis of 'an hook'?

Kevin Caldwell
----------

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

Kevin:

> Could English 'nook' be a reanalysis of 'an hook'?
I don't consider it impossible, Kevin.  If it were correct, it would be a
case like Low Saxon maars (~ Moors ~ Mors) 'ass', 'arse', likely from an
(d)em ~ am aars 'on the arse' (as in the old favorite vulgarity Lek my (an
dem >) am aars > Lek/Lik my an'n maars! (Leck/Lick mi an'n Mors!,* the
equivalent of English "Kiss my ass!" and the in the USA widely familiar
Yiddish equivalent !קוש מיר ׳ן תּחת Kush mir 'n tokhes! ~ Kish mir 'n
tukhes!).

* Modern Low Saxon lost the dative forms, hence an dem > an den ~
an'n'on(to) the'. Middle Saxon
-m may have been reanalized as the onset of the following noun; hence aars >
maars (= Lower Elbe dialects [mo:3s], hence written Mors or Moors).  Just a
theory.
     By the way, Mors is also the word used in Missingsch.  Many vulgar
curses like the one above are imported into Missingsch in the complete Low
Saxon form, or they are translated, often with "wrong" case markings
according to Standard German, hence Leck mich an'n Mors! or Kanns mich maal
an'n Mors lecken, Alder! Mors sounds less "brutal" than the German
equivalent Arsch. A "lovely" related curse, also used in its full Low Saxon
form in Missingsch, is Klei di an'n Mors! (Klay dy an d'n maars!) "Go
scratch your ass!" (Klayen [klei(e)n], related to klay [Klei] 'clay',
originally meant 'to remove clay' or 'to dig in clay' but came to be
extended to meaning things like 'muck around', 'to fiddle (with)', 'to
rummage', 'to scrape', 'to scratch'. It's a useful Low Saxon verb to know
and in most contexts is not vulgar; e.g. Hey klayt sik an d'n kop 'He's
scratching his head', Hey klayt sik an d'n kop (He kleit sik an'n Kopp)
'He's scratching his head', Hey klay in syn fik rüm, man den slœtel kun un
kun hey nich vinden (He klei in de Fick rüm, man den Slötel kunn un kunn he
nich finnen) 'He kept rummaging in his pocket, but he simply couldn't find
the key'.

Archaic English "nock" 'small hook' (usually on a spindle) appears to be
derived from Scandinavian *hnokki* or its Danish/Norwegian derivative
nokkeor Swedish derivative
nock.

"Nook" seems to have come from Northern English dialects. A candidates
mentioned as a donor or relative in the OED are Middle Saxon ōke ~
nōke 'acute-angled
piece of land', which I take as being related to the Modern Low Saxon
oken ~œken('slanted roof top', 'attic') Jonny and I discussed earlier.

I wonder if the -en suffix marks an original plural, but I'm more inclined
to see it as a lexical nominal suffix as in haken 'hook', braden 'roast',
laden 'shop', wagen 'car', kar(ren) 'cart', etc., based on verbal haak-'hook',
braad- 'roast', laad- 'load', waag- 'weigh' (cf. German wägen 'to weigh', be
wegen 'to move'), kar- 'to cart' (< Latin carrus 'car(t)'), etc.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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