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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
How did hearse (herse) in Enlish, go from a portcullis to a canopy over a bier or coffin to a hearse/car that transports the coffin and body to it's grave ?
Hearse is also used in the Church to describe a stand which holds several candles.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
There will be plenty of examples if you scan English words derived from French, because most such borrowings are 500 to 800 years old, plenty of time for semantic drift in either or both languages. Double entendre was current French in the late 1600s, when it was taken into English.
Further back, any of the well-known faux-amis for a start: at the time of borrowing from French into English, assist(er) must have meant the same in both languages: either 'be present at' or 'help out at'. (I haven't the OED to hand so can't tell which.)
Related to this are the pseudo-foreign expressions, which never existed in the language they seem to have been taken from. Examples are English nom de plume (the French for 'pen-name' is nom de guerre), Japanese sarariiman 'businessman' quasi 'salaryman', French and German smoking 'smoking jacket', and the Russian habit (I haven't any specific example) of sticking an extra -s and/or -ing onto an English borrowing in the belief that it makes it look more English.
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