Tired of Pain Court yet?

[Michael Mccafferty]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:

>
>
>
>
> > On Vendredi, avril 2, 2004, at 06:11  am, Michael Mccafferty wrote:
> >
> >> Yes, the pin court or pins courts was the suggestion that  i made
> >> to the Siouan discussion list. No one seemed to like it, but it was the
> >> only thing that made sense. I'll restate that position to that list.
>
> Michael-- As the one who started the thread, I'd like to
> apologize for not having commented on your suggestion,
> which certainly is very sensible.


Oh. No problem at all, Rory. None.


  It wasn't that I
> didn't like it; it's just that there were so many
> reasonable possibilities that were raised then without
> anything being a clincher that I didn't know which way
> to go.


"Pain Court" is among the best in onomastic doozies. It's right up there.


  Some thoughts:
>
> 1.  How is the St. Louis area fixed for pines?  There
>     are lots of pines in Canada, and there is a famous
>     band of pine forest across some of the old Southern
>     states parallel with the Gulf, but I usually think
>     of the Missouri/Illinois area to be a deciduous,
>     oak-hickory region.

As I mentioned a few minutes ago, there are several native "evergreen"
species in Indiana. What I would imagine for St. Louis is that either the
area had/has a relict white pine (Pinus albus) or a relict eastern hemlock
(Tsuga something-or-other)--or both, as they often coexist--from the last
continental glaciation. Eastern cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is very
common in these parts, although, from my experience inside the French
primary sources, the coureurs de bois, the missionaries, etc. call this
tree "cedre" and not "pin". So, sure, there is a good possibility that
some sort of "pine" grew along the Mississippi at St. Louis. Definitely.
These relict species of "evergreens" are often seen on bluffs overlooking
river bottoms.



>
> 2.  Would the French have made and perpetuated such an
>     error?

Sure.


They are certainly fluent in their own
>     language, and quite literate.

Literacy was hit and miss in the 18th century among the French in the
west. One of the best interpreters to the Miami didn't know how read or
write.



  If it was originally
>     Pins Courts rather than Pain Court, wouldn't someone
>     at least have left record complaining of the distortion?
>

Not necessarily. Once place names get established, they are often
invincible. Not wanting to open up another can of worms, but let me add
that the French called Miami villages at the headwaters of the Maumee
"Kiskakon" (which is a name for an Ottawa band). The Ottawa never lived
there and the name was used before the Ottawa were even established lower
down the Maumee near present-day Toledo. Plus, the Ottawa and the Miami
were at each others' throats throughout most of the French regime. So,
here we are with "Kiskakon" as the French name for the Miami villages.
What a mess! I have better examples of illogical place names getting fixed
in stone, but at the moment I can't recall them. They'll come, probably
right after I log off.


     After all, "Short Pines" really does make a lot more
>     sense than "Short Bread", so I would expect a shift
>     in interpretation to go in the other direction if
>     anything.
>
> 3.  What about the other places named Pain Court in France
>     and Canada?  Isn't it likely that the name was simply
>     imported by a homesick French or Canadian?

If the thing was actually "Pain Court," yep, that's probably what
happened, or else it was an nickname for some fella.


 In that
>     case, the name would probably have nothing to do with
>     St. Louis, regardless of its original etymology.
>     Locally, the name would be meaningless.
>
> 4.  What about the punning humor mentioned for the
>     voyageurs?  Perhaps the original name was from
>     a local Indian language, and the French humorously
>     recast its sound sequence into their own language
>     as Pain Court.

That's possible. This is apparently what happen (another can of worms!)
with "Calumet River"...except, and this is interesting...there is no
evidence the French ever used "calumet" as the name for that stream. It
looks like early English speakers took a native term and turned into to
"Calumet".


  In this case, Pain Court might have
>     been parsed whole, in reference to some other Pain
>     Court location, or it could have been parsed to its
>     parts to mean "short bread".  In the latter case,
>     the pun might have been purely fanciful, or it
>     could have meant something to them.  These people
>     were presumably very used to dealing with direct
>     translations from Indian languages, which were
>     likely ungrammatical in French.  Given that they
>     had 'a court de pain' to mean 'short of bread',
>     is it really too much of a stretch to interpret
>     'pain court' to mean the same thing if cast as
>     a translation from "Indian"?


It's very possible. Too bad we can't rewind history....but then again...


  I think I could
>     take it that way in English either as "short
>     bread" or as "bread short" if I understood it
>     as a joke on the twisted syntax of a foreign
>     language.  In this case, it would fit in with
>     the tradition of it meaning "short of bread",
>     without having to get there through straight-faced
>     French grammar.


Well, I don't know. I couldn't commit to *that* very readily.


>
> In any case, thanks for your suggestion and other
> comments!  They have been very enlightening.


And murky and muddy, to boot!

Michael





>
> Best,
> Rory
>
>
>

"Those are my principles.
If you don't like them,
I have others."

-Groucho Marx


"When I was born I was
so surprised that I didn't
talk for a year and a half."

-Gracie Allen