Cranberries (Re: ho 'circle')

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Alan H. Hartley wrote:
> Just checked American Heritage, Random House, and OED, and they all
> agree on a (probably Low) German word like kraanbere 'cranberry,' lit.
> 'crane-berry.' Cf. also Sw. tranbär, Da. tranebaer 'cranberry' < trana,
> trane, 'crane.' I'm open to persuasion though!

Well, there doesn't seem to be any question that the etynology here is
crane-berry, and there seems to be general agreement that the word comes
into English as some sort of a loan, too, i.e., not from Old English -
whether whatever crane-berry would have been in Old English.  Now the only
question in my mind, is whether this is an original faux-pas of my own, a
glitch in my memory, or whether I mislearned this from someone else?

Anyway, my apologies for the misinformation.  I'm glad we've got people on
the list who can catch and correct things like this!