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stranger
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Is there a word that is used when for example Flutterby may be changed into butterfly?
Jake
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Welcome, Dear!
I'm not sure whether you mean just this particular word or
not. If you mean times such as when my fifth-grade class fell out laughing because I said "the torners are corn",
that is a spoonerism, after the gentleman who did it so often that that error got named for him.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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My children used to sing a song which went:
"I saw the butterfly flutterby" - the Reverend Spooner had a lot to answer for.
Or did I read that I wasn't supposed to end with a "for"?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
Or did I read that I wasn't supposed to end with a "for"?
If you did, ignore it.
Bingley
Bingley
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which reminds me of the childhood riddle:
Why did the dragonfly drink the flagon dry?
Because he saw the butterfly flutter by.
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old hand
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old hand
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Dug this out of the archives....and was surprised to note that the etymology of butterfly wasn't explored. I was under the impression that it did derive from "flutter by".
stales
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I'd quote directly but I might be accused of being contadino.Faldage? Are you feeling alright? You look a bit pastey to me, hon. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Believe it or not we talked about that one as recently as Jan 29 - see the Groggy Cogitations thread in "Miscellany". Spooky sometimes how the same questions occur so often so close together. 
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old hand
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old hand
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Believe it or not we talked about that one as recently as Jan 29 - see the Groggy Cogitations thread in "Miscellany".YeahBuddybut, (c.2002), we did not conclude the discussion. I'll try...On every fourth of July I camp out at Sinking Cove in Tennessee. Sinking Cove is a place that time forgot. Be careful, you might get hit in the head by a flying turkey or get run over by a white-tailed deer. Near a spring discharge on a stretch of cool moist clay you will find hundreds of Butterflies of all kinds. A beautiful sight. The Butterflies come here to get nutrients from the wet clay. The wet clay looks a lot like butter before we got into the habit of coloring butter yellow. If my ice chest wasn't full of beer and I had some butter, I would put the butter in a pot with a lid and bury it in the clay, like they did in England in the Fourteenth Century.
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If my ice chest wasn't full of beer and I had some butter, I would put the butter in a pot with a lid and bury it in the clay, like they did in England in the Fourteenth Century.
Why? Why bury the butter? What does this do? I truly am lost here! [totally confused-e]
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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To return to the original question, metathesis is transposition of sounds, usually adjacent ones (ask ~ aks, bird ~ brid, wasp ~ waps being three from Old English); spoonerism is transposition of initial consonants; and folk etymology is a mistaken belief that a word comes from a similar-sounding word or phrase: and this is an example of all three.
Butterfly seems such an ugly and inappropriate word for the dear little things. My favourite is the Welsh pili-pala.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Butterfly seems such an ugly and inappropriate word...
Papillon captures some of their jumpy playfulness, too
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ask ~ aks
It is often pointed out in response to claims that MnE ax is just as correct as ask that both acsian and ascian were used in Old English. The implication is that the modern ask pronunciation came from one of the OE words, but I thought that the OE sc was pronounced sh. Is this not the case with ascian?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Butterfly in Spanish is mariposa. Pron:mar-ee-poe-sah. In Chiapas, Mexico, at a place called Agua Azul, is a canyon upriver full of mariposas. The river is a very strong, muscular blue during the dry season. They say that the color comes from certain chemicals present in the bedrock (Stales?). Another beautiful blue associated with butterflies is the Blue Morpho butterfly that I had the pleasure of seeing in Costa Rica. It is at least as large as your hand and a gem-tone blue with black border. [getting the need-to-wander-again blues]
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enthusiast
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Old English spelling was not perfect in representing phonemes. It is more accurate to say there was a SH phoneme in Old English, written SC, as in scip. But there might also occur the cluster SK. The only way of writing this was also SC.
In cases of ambiguity the modern reflex is a good guide. Since we say ask not ash, the OE ascian was probably pronounced that way.
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old hand
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old hand
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Consuelo The colour of water bodies may be a product of dissolved salts and/or algal activity, but is more usually a function of (Bean - help me out here) the water's depth, turbidity, surrface conditions, the colour of the bed and the amount of water in the atmosphere above it (which has an impact on the colour of the sky). Frinstance, shallow tropical seas are a beautiful aqua because of all the white (often pure silica or calcium)sediments. Famous examples of which I am aware are the unbelievably blue blue of the crater lake at Mount Gambier, South Australia and the candy pink of Pink Lake (and why's it called Pink Lake? - we are but simple folk!! near Esperance, Western Australia. Last time I heard, the Mt Gambier blue (good pic at http://www.mountgambiertourism.com.au/ was thought to be a function of elevated calcium content at certain times of the year. This may be the same explanation for your lake. The pink lake phenomenon (not restricted to the lake near Esperance I might add - they are quite common) is (I believe) due to a "bloom" of pink algae. Other chemicals that could give a blue colouring to water would be copper or cobalt. In my experience however, copper rich waters are green. Either way, I wouldn't want to be swimming in the thing. stales
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Carpal Tunnel
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Stales, Agua Azul is a river that runs through the mountainous jungle near the southern border of Mexico and Guatemala. During the rainy season, the water is greenish, but during the dry times it is a most wonderous color blue. I believe it originates in the limestone beds of the Yucatán. [so sue me if I'm wrong-e] I know that there are some other rivers in that general area that are dangerous to swim in because of chemicals in the water that are toxic to humans. But not here. http://www.thresholds.net/aguazul/aguazul.htmpost edit Yes! The color of your Blue Lake is the color of Agua Azul when at it's finest!
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Indonesian for butterfly is kupu-kupu. Then there's kupu-kupu malam, literally night butterfly, but it doesn't mean moth. It's a euphemism for prostitute.
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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bingley notes: The Indonesian for butterfly is kupu-kupu.
and in another thread, re endearment:
Just add ku (my) to the end of the person's name. So, Candiku.
As a wild speculation, is there any connection between these, bing? Any connection between "butterfly" and "dear thing"?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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No connection at all that I know of. The -ku in Candiku is just the combining form of aku I, me, my. Before a verb it's I, joined on to the end of a noun it's my, joined on to the end of a verb it's me.
For example: pacarku (my boyfriend/girlfriend), sepatuku (my shoe)
Aku sangat suka AWAD. (I like AWAD a lot)
Menyuratiku dong. Go on, write to me.
Dia tidak mencintaiku lagi He/She doesn't love me any more.
Bingley
Bingley
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