LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.22 (02) [E]

Tue Jan 22 17:38:31 UTC 2008

L O W L A N D S - L  -  21 January 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.21 (08) [D/E]

From: Luc Hellinckx < luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Ron,

You wrote:

*schummeln*:

1.      reinigen, schoonmaken (to clean)

2.      kuirpas, op zijn gemak wandelen (to amble, to walk in a sloppy way)

3.      oblichten (voornamelijk in spelen) [> *schummeln* Missingsch en
andere Noordduitse dialecten] (to cheat (especially in games))

Amazing to see how meanings can shift in a similar way.

Low Saxon, (re "schummeln" Foerste): sich schnell hin- und herbewegen >
betrügen
Brabantish, (re "schokken"): bounce up and down > husband secretly hoarding
part of his salary

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

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

Yeah, how about that, Luc?!

Low Saxon, (re "schummeln" Foerste): sich schnell hin- und herbewegen >
betrügen

For everyone else: Low Saxon *schummeln* 'to move rapidly back and forth',
'to cheat'

And previously we also mentioned the semantic branch of 'to clean'
('originally 'to scrub' I suppose).

Well, I think that "fast movement" > "slight of hand" > "trickery" >
"cheating" is what happened there in the semantic history.

Now, I have a feeling this ain't the end of the story either ... Remember my
"lectures" about "iterative ~ frequentive"? There you have it again, that
busy little /-l-/.

Don't take the vowel too seriously, because labial consonants (/m/, /b/,
/p/) have a way of making adjacent short vowels round (= labial); so there
might as well have been an /i/, /e/ or /a/ instead of the /u/ or /o/ for all
we know.

So now bear this in mind and take away that iterative ~ frequentive suffix
... and ... presto-changeo! ... we have "sham" (= 'trick', 'hoax', etc.),
noun, adjective and verb!

This is what the Oxford English dictionary has to say about the etymology:

[Of obscure origin; the word first appears as slang, together with the
related verb, about 1677, and immediately came into very frequent use.
  Commonly explained as in some way connected with *sham*, north. dial. form
of SHAME<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=sham&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=A887-dwBb6p-16260&result_place=1&xrefword=shame>
*n. *and* v.* This is not impossible, on the supposition that the slang word
arose from some once well-known anecdote or incident in a play. The
following quot. may possibly contain a genuine tradition, but the alleged
origin does not seem to account satisfactorily for the sense in the early
examples. (North says that the word was introduced into general use, in the
phrase 'sham plot', by Dangerfield; but it was already common some years
before 1680, the date to which this statement refers.)
  *a1734* NORTH <http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-n.html#north> *
Exam.* II. iv. §1 (1740) 231 The word *Sham* is true Cant of the Newmarket
Breed. It is contracted of *ashamed*. The native Signification is a Town
Lady of Diversion, in Country Maid's Cloaths, who to make good her Disguise,
pretends to be so *sham'd!* Thence it became proverbial, when a maimed Lover
was laid up, or looked meager, to say he had met with a *Sham*.]

So what if it's related to iterative *schummel* ~ *schommel*? And might
"scam" be related to it too? Again, the *OED* says its origin is obscure,
but it seems to be of American origin and has been attested only since the
early 20th century. Might it be a variant of "sham" which has been known
since the 17th century (an era of many Dutch loans, by the way)? Is there a
Dutch word * *scham* or **schom*, old or new, that might be related? (I
don't think that the "shame" group is related to it, though.)

And the plot keeps thickening ...

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

Re: Schom and scham. Hallo Ron,and Luc.

We used the verb "sjoemelen" at home to connote cheating at cards. It was
probably a Low-land import through my Mother's side of the family. The
longer I stick with Lowlands, the more of those words I recognize!

Schommelen = to play on "de schommel" is to play on the swing. Another
meaning is to swing back and forth like a hanging planter or a basssinet
(also called een schommelwieg): to walk drunkenly is also called schommelen.

I also found the word schompermuilen  v. int.  the meaning of which is given
as "een schamper gezicht zetten"  The word schamper adj or adv. is related
to schimpen and beschimpen which litteraly means to shame somebody. So that
would be from another root.
----------

From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Ron,

You wrote:

So what if it's related to iterative *schummel* ~ *schommel*? And might
"scam" be related to it too? Again, the *OED* says its origin is obscure,
but it seems to be of American origin and has been attested only since the
early 20th century. Might it be a variant of "sham" which has been known
since the 17th century (an era of many Dutch loans, by the way)? Is there a
Dutch word * *scham* or **schom*, old or new, that might be related? (I
don't think that the "shame" group is related to it, though.)

Me neither, don't think "shame" is related, change from a long to a short
vowel (shame >< sham/scam) is not too obvious.

The o>a>o change (schom > scham) on the other hand can be bridged, so I
think you're on to something very interesting there Ron! Your explanation
immediately made me think of the word "schammeteern" that is quite often
used in Southern Dutch; it means "to take away furtively, to sneak" and is
believed to be a derivation of French "escamoter", of which the etymology
reads:

*escamoter*: Espagn. escamotar et escamodar, changer les choses de place,
terme de bohémiens. Là s'arrête ce que nous savons sur ce mot ; ni commutare
de Ménage, ni squama, indiqué avec doute par Diez, ou le gaélique cam,
tromperie, ne donnent rien d'assuré.

(escamoter > scam?)

Spanish gypsy word apparently, but apart from that, a dead end street. For
some reason "commutare" is not an option either, even though semantically
this would fit well:

(es)commutare = to exchange, to swap > to sneak > to deceive

with the field of "tauschen" (commutare, play with dice, swap, deceive),
whose etymology is not solved either. One of the oldest attestations is
"rostiuschaere" (before 1300, horse coper (< Flemish "kopen")), nowadays
called a "pjeirentösser" in Brabantish.

This may as well point in gypsy direction, so I was wondering if in some
obscure Indian dialect, you don't happen to know any trade-related words
that sound more or less like -kam-, -kom- on the one hand or -tus- on the
other.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

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

Interesting, Luc!

So far I have found no lead in any Romany and Sanskrit reference. We'd need
a good Iberian Kalo (Caló) dictionary (not North American Caló, which is a
US Spanish sociolect).

(es)commutare = to exchange, to swap > to sneak > to deceive

In that case it's easy to go to 'to switch', a common vendors' practice
forever, where customers buy one thing but end up with something different,
inferior (known as "bait and switch").

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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