Some may get a headache from my comparative posts, but as running threads are sparse I post this one anyway.

From a friend:"Here are a few shots of the Acorn".(her six weeks old baby boy; the mother is from American and Dutch parenthood.) She added:

"Isn't it funny that Acorn in Dutch means squirrel, and in English squirrels EAT acorns!"

(actually acorn(eikel)does not mean squirrel but in Dutch eekhoorn(squirrel) is pronounced: acorn
The pronounciation is alike, yet the etymologies have nothing in common.

acornO.E. æcern "nut," common Gmc. (cf. O.N. akarn, Du. aker, Low Ger. ecker
"acorn," Goth. akran "fruit"), originally the mast of any forest tree, and ultimately related to (via notion of "fruit of the open or unenclosed land") to O.E. æcer "open land," Goth.
akrs "field," O.Fr. aigrun "fruits and vegetables" (from a Gmc. source). The sense gradually restricted in Low Ger., Scand. and Eng. to the most important of the forest produce for feeding swine, the mast of the oak tree. Spelling changed by folk etymology from oak (O.E. ac) + corn.

squirrel
1327, from Anglo-Fr. esquirel, O.Fr. escurel (Fr. écureuil), from V.L. *scuriolus, dim. of *scurius "squirrel," variant of L. sciurus, from Gk. skiouros "a squirrel," lit. "shadow-tailed," from skia "shadow" + oura "tail." Perhaps the original notion is "that which makes a shade with its
tail." The verb meaning "to hoard up, store away" (as a aquirrel does nuts) is first recorded 1939; squirrely is from 1925. The O.E. word was acweorna, which survived into M.E. as aquerne.

and this sentence segment jumped out at me--originally the mast of any forest tree--
i am reading 1491--about life in the americas before the european's arrived, and came across the term mast (defined in 1491 as "beechnuts, acorns and other fruit and edible nuts at part of the 'litter' on a forest floor)"--and this meaning of mast one totally new to me!

Interesting. seeing the latin root, one wonders if the word squirrel and scurry are related...

And of course, I can only relate all this to eggcorn

scurry (v.)
1810, perhaps from hurry-scurry (1732), a reduplication of hurry.
scuttle (v.1)
"scamper, scurry," c.1450, probably related to scud (q.v.).
hurry (v.)
1590, first recorded in Shakespeare, who used it often, perhaps a W.Midlands sense of M.E. hurren "to vibrate rapidly, buzz," from P.Gmc. *khurza "to move with haste" (cf. M.H.G. hurren "to whir, move fast," O.Swed. hurra "to whirl round"), which also perhaps is the root of hurl. The noun is 1600, from the verb. Reduplicated form hurry-scurry is from 1732.



You mean to eggcornize the acorn?( sponsored by Tomahawks Squirrel Traps ? ) It's a very good one btw , the closest to eggcorn eggcorn you can get (sorry, I was slow to see this)

I have heard of beechmast (beech mast?) but didn't clue in that it might mean other trees might have mast as well.


ha, I've mastered another word!