St. Louis?

[Michael Mccafferty]

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, Koontz John E wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> > > I can't remember at the moment why it was named after 'Pain Court', or
> > what 'Pain Court' really meant. I think somewhere there's an article
> > that explains this. Bob, does this ring a bell?
> >
> > 'Fraid not, unless it's a reference to SHORT-BREAD.  But I would expect
> > that expression to have originated in English.  (Do the French call
> > baking fats by the name "shortening"?).  One of the OED guys on the list
> > could attack that angle.
>
> I had an oral version of the paper on one or more occasions while helping
> with the computer end of the Gros Ventre dictionary.  I think Allan's
> understanding is that pain court is more or less analogous to English
> "short commons" or maybe in this case "starvation town."  In other words,
> bread was not so much short (without yeast?) as in shortage.


But, encore une fois, this doesn't fit French and it smells like a
folk-etymology, albeit a tasty one.

Michael




>
> It's interesting to consider that ppahiN (I think the nasalization is
> right here) z^ide might be related to pain cort, but it doesn't look like
> it holds up, and I've always assumed that Fletcher & LaFlesche were
> correct in asserting that it was a reference to Clark's residence there.
>
> PpahiN z^ide strikes me as a cross-linguistic pun raised to the level of a
> folk etymology and quite in line with Omaha humor.  It reminds me of xidha
> z^e or xidha giaN for 'Friday', though there's only a translation there,
> no pun.  (I guess that would be xuya c^he in Dakota.)  I think hte
> practice of introducing slight permutations in words to produce new
> meanings for humorous effect are more or less universal.  I remember it
> being obligatory in the dorms years ago to refer to certain brands of soda
> as Mountain Spew and Dr. Pecker, and though neither of these is quite as
> good a play on words as ppahi z^ide we were all impressed with our
> wittiness.  (Similar things were done with other brands, but this sort of
> thing can easily get out of hand.)
>
>
>