prat(t) (but not Siouan)

[Bruce Ingham]

On 18/8/04 4:18 pm, "Alan H. Hartley" <ahartley at d.umn.edu> wrote:

> ROOD DAVID S wrote:
>
>> Along these lines, my father used to insist that the correct
>> spelling for the expression "under way", as in "let's get this project
>> under way", was really "under weigh", as in weighing anchor.  Does anyone
>> know anything more about that?  I've been laughed at more than once for
>> perpetuating his idea.
>
> Good example of a Du loan (which is, despite what I said earlier, from
> the _eighteenth_ century): onderweg (also -wegen) 'on the way, under
> way,' < onder 'under, in the course of,' etc. + weg (dat. pl. wegen)
> 'way'. "Under weigh" is apparently a technical folk-etymology (if I may
> coin an oxymoron) arising from anchor-weighing. The "correct" spelling
> is recorded from 1743 and the folk-etymologic from 1777.
>
> Alan
>
>
>
On the same tack and without sailing too close to the wind, does any one
know why in the old days the anchors were 'won' after they had been
'weighed'.  Was it suppletion or an old form?

Bruce