LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.09 (01) [E]

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From: wim <wkv at home.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.08 (03) [E]

We bl;aken weer van de ideen dus

[Wim Verdoold]

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From: Utz H. Woltmann <uwoltmann at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.08 (03) [E]

Heather wrote:

> PS My ancient Sprach Brockhaus has der Black und das Black ( it's
> upstairs and I'm too tired [ for that read lazy!] to go up and check)
> one is Saxon = ink and the other = a horse
>
> How come 'a horse'?   from the colour 'black' or some other derivation?
>
Hello Heather,

there are horses of different colours, white horses, grey horses, black
horses and others. A white or grey horse is named in LS = de (witte)
Schimmel, D = de (witte) schimmel, G = der Schimmel. It is not allowed
in G to say 'der weiße Schimmel' because of tautology. They call it
'doppelt gemoppelt'. But I have often read or heard in G for example
'ABM-Maßnahme' (Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme - Maßnahme), 'HIV-Virus'
(Human Immunodeficiency Virus - Virus) or 'PDF-Format' (Portable
Document Format - Format). These are no tautologies?

A black horse is named in LS = 'de Black' from its colour like in D =
'het zwarte paard' but also 'de moor' or 'het moorpaard' (horse of the
Moors?) but in G = der Rappe. Typical 'black horses' are for example the
Friesians:
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/friesian/

Best regards
Utz H. Woltmann

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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.09 (03) [E]

Reinhard wrote:  An idiomatic expression using blak is blak sapen (hebben)
("(to have) guzzled ink"), as in Jy hebt blak sapen (Ji hebbt Black sapen)
'You (pl.) are crazy/silly'.

Is it at all possible that this originally was 'smoke' not 'ink'? Though I
have no idea what effect drinking ink would have on anyone, the idea that
you might become 'silly' from the efffects of smoke is much more likely.
Like the good old shamanistic practice of inhaling smoke until you
hallucinate .....???????

Or did Saxon ink have secret ingredients that turned the head?

Here oak apple gall was used to make ink - with soot or without I don't
know.

What I particularly like about this particular word is that as the original
meaning 'died' so it took on another holistic meaning:

that which has been burnt / soot >>> ink made with soot

Once ink is no longer made with soot, the original meaning / link fades and
it becomes totally 'ink'

Perhaps once other coloured inks were created /named, the black soot-based
ink's name was used to describe its colour rather than use and so....

black = colour

which then is transferred universally to all similarly coloured objects.

Or something like....

Heather

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

Thanks, "dudes".

Utz, *de witte Schimmel* makes sense because to me it denotes a horse that
is completely white, while *de Appelschimmel* is a dappled white horse,
still a *Schimmel*.

Oops! I say "PDF format" even in English ...

Yes, Heather, that's Word Sleuthing 103, and I enjoy it too.

And there's *blank*. In German it pretty much only means 'shiny'. In Low
Saxon it means that but also comes with the remnant sense of 'white' which
you still find in place names, such as Blankenese (now a part of Hamburg)
'white (shiny) promontory'. It is also found in the Low Saxon nickname for
the North Sea: *de blanke Hans* (probably originally *de blanke Jan*) "(the)
*blank* John." Apparently this is not in reference to shiny water but to the
white caps of the stormy sea, because this nickname connotes the dangerous,
stormy sea that claims lives and land.

My hunch is that *blank* used to be different from plain *wit* 'white' in
that it denoted 'sparkling white' or 'strikingly white (in the distance)'.
(Right now, as the morning haze is being burned off, I'm looking at the
emerging snow caps of the Olympic Mountains, and I'm thinking that in Low
Saxon they're *blank* even nowadays, not so in German.)

And apparently, *blank* came to be imported into some Romance languages (*
blanc*, *blanco*, *branco*, etc., but Romanian still *alb*) as 'white' with
the extended meaning 'empty', which English then borrowed, as in "blank
slate."

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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