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You are right, Fal; I meant descriptivism. I edited it so as not to confuse future readers. Thanks for catching that.  What I mean by "real" is that maybe many people know that it's inaccurate, but they still use it they way the "folks" expect. One's own internal acceptance is optional, as always... I always wondered about those 'chokes. Has anyone eaten them, or does anyone eat them regularly? I'd love to try a recipe, just for fun. The Spanish for sunflower, similar to the Italian, is " girasol", which literally means "sun turner". I don't know of a good place for etymologies of Spanish words, but maybe one of you does. For example, " paraguas" (umbrella) has always stumped me as to whether it comes from "parar" ("to stop") or "para" ("for"). Both make sense. It must be the same as for " parasol". It's interesting that our English word, umbrella, is used almost exclusively (in the US) for rain, but the name does not refer to rain or water, but instead to shade. :0)
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You are right, Fal; I meant descriptivism. I edited it so as not to confuse future readers. Thanks for catching that. Grammatical descriptivism looks at the language as it is used by native speakers and derives the rules from that usage. Etymology is much the same in one respect. We look at the evidence and make our best guesses as to the history of a word. Folks can come up with all kinds of ideas about what the origin of a word is, but if an idea doesn't have good evidence to support it it remains suspect. Similarly with grammatical usages, people can make mistakes and they are not seen as "good grammar" just because someone spoke them. Someone can say, "I ain't got no problems" and that is perfectly good grammar in some speech communities. Someone says, "I no have problems" and that is just a mistake or something that came from a non-native speaker. Grammar is variable from dialect to dialect and can change over time. Etymology is pure fact. We don't necessarily know what the facts are but wrong guesses are wrong guesses.
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Etymology is pure fact. We don't necessarily know what the facts are but wrong guesses are wrong guesses. Hmmmm. Here I will have to disagree. There's not much pure anything in this world. How do you distinguish between a "pure" fact and a fact without an adjective? In the end, you are accepting another person's "facts" and really have no evidence of your own about the veracity, unless you actually witnessed it yourself. Does the acceptance by a majority make a "fact" true? How do you know what a "wrong guess" is if you don't know what the "pure fact" is? If people are guessing, there must not be a "pure fact" available, or they'd quit. Since we have scientists who change the "pure facts" about everything from what makes us fat to the origin of the universe on a regular basis, I'd say we're all guessing our way through our lives, and choose what we will believe as we go along, based in "pure fact" or not. :0)
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I would think it would be from 'para' but perhaps zmjezhd will enlighten us further on that.
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I always wondered about those 'chokes. Has anyone eaten them, or does anyone eat them regularly? I'd love to try a recipe, just for fun.
"parar" ("to stop") or "para" ("for"). Both make sense. It must be the same as for "parasol". It's interesting that our English word, umbrella, is used almost exclusively (in the US) for rain, but the name does not refer to rain or water, but instead to shade. :0)
(online ety.) 1616, from Fr. parasol (1580), from It. parasole, lit. "protection from the sun," from para- "defense against" (from verb parere "to ward off") + sole "sun," from L. solem (nom. sol). As for Jerusalem Artichoke (helianthus tuberosus) (aardpeer or topinambour [D.] ), it’s funny that it has nothing to do with Jerusalem nor Artichoke except for the faint nutty artichoke-like taste. I had them in my garden for years. Although they never flowered they gave a good amount of roots.You can prepare them just cooked until à point - done and nothing much added, but any creamed mild sauce will do it good because the taste is not very exciting. Considered healthy.
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Etymology is pure fact. We don't necessarily know what the facts are but wrong guesses are wrong guesses. Hmmmm. Here I will have to disagree. There's not much pure anything in this world. How do you distinguish between a "pure" fact and a fact without an adjective? In the end, you are accepting another person's "facts" and really have no evidence of your own about the veracity, unless you actually witnessed it yourself. Does the acceptance by a majority make a "fact" true? How do you know what a "wrong guess" is if you don't know what the "pure fact" is? If people are guessing, there must not be a "pure fact" available, or they'd quit. Since we have scientists who change the "pure facts" about everything from what makes us fat to the origin of the universe on a regular basis, I'd say we're all guessing our way through our lives, and choose what we will believe as we go along, based in "pure fact" or not. :0) When I said "[e]tymology is a pure fact" I was using "etymology" to mean the actual history of the development of a word. Some caveman eons ago cobbled together a bunch of phonemes to mean a cave bear. That set of phonemes became accepted by the whole bunch of cavemen and was used to mean what we know as 'cave bear.' If some of the people moved away from the area where the cave bears lived they still had the word and it may have been used to mean the area where the cave bears lived. Eventually it may have come to mean the area where any sort of bear lived, if there were no bears of any sort in the area where the speakers lived it may have come to mean the climate of that area. There are a lot of steps in this lineage that we can never reconstruct, but the lineage is still there. Of course we're never 100% certain. We make guesses based on what we know. If we're satisfied with those guesses we stop there and continue merrily on. This is what separates science from myth. In science we take those guesses and look for evidence that confirms or contradicts those guesses. In the case, e.g., of 'cracker' as a derogatory term for poor or racist whites some people have made the 'whipcracker' guess. If we find the term 'cracker' used for something very similar to the modern definition in a context that can easily be taken to have been connected to the modern usage and that pre-dates the circumstances that are involved in the 'whipcracker' guess than we can reasonably assume that the 'whipcracker' guess is wrong.
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[Quote=Faldage]
In the case, e.g., of 'cracker' as a derogatory term for poor or racist whites some people have made the 'whipcracker' guess. If we find the term 'cracker' used for something very similar to the modern definition in a context that can easily be taken to have been connected to the modern usage and that pre-dates the circumstances that are involved in the 'whipcracker' guess than we can reasonably assume that the 'whipcracker' guess is wrong
Unless evidence can be found that the pejorative term 'cracker' has evolved from that pre-dated moment and from 'whipcracker ' along seperate lines. Then both guesses are right.
Last edited by BranShea; 09/06/08 08:16 PM.
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The way my dad used the word peckerwood was unrelated to race, as I recall. He used it to describe anybody who was any kind of cheat--monetarily or maybe someone who did extremely shoddy work; that kind of thing.
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