#80808
09/15/2002 9:30 AM
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woodpecker
Turkish: aðaçkakan
German: Specht
French: pic
Italian: picchio
Spanish: pájaro carpintero
The above is from the Langtolang email mailing I've just started receiving. My question: In noticing the "pic" root, I wonder whether there's any connection between that root and the word "piccolo"? Emanuela?
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#80809
09/15/2002 1:22 PM
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Dear WW: I suspect emanuela will tell you "piccolo" = small is from a different root.
Did you every hear Pete go tweet,tweet tweet on his piccolo?
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#80810
09/15/2002 1:37 PM
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Right, Bill, even if I am not sure, I have to check at home.
Anyway, picchio is obviously related to the verbe picchiare = to hit, to tap on, to knock at...
obviously referring at his hitting the wood.
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#80811
09/15/2002 1:54 PM
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My question now is, where did the pic in piccolo come from? The -olo is obviously from the Latin diminutive suffix -ula/o.
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#80812
09/15/2002 2:40 PM
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Just to add a slim picking to the woodpecker lexicon:
The woodpecker is described as one of the scansorial birds, scansorial meaning "climbing."
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#80813
09/21/2002 7:34 PM
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I think we'll find the root means "small," the piccolo being a very small and high-pitched (read: "shrill") flute-like wind instrument
Recall that the prefix pico- means a very small part of something (one out of ten-to-the-ninth; a thousandth of a millionth)
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#80814
09/21/2002 7:55 PM
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I've often wondered howcome a woodpecker's brain doesn't get homogenized
by his jackhammer excavating squarewave oscillations.
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#80815
09/21/2002 8:26 PM
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the prefix pico- means a very small part of something
But it derives through Spanish from picar, to prick. AHD lists piccolo as of obscure origin.
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#80816
09/21/2002 8:48 PM
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In reply to:
But it derives through Spanish from picar, to prick. AHD lists piccolo as of obscure origin.
Well, then, the prick/piccolo connection could be the pricking effect of the sound itself. Very different from the flute, I think. Think of "Stars and Stripes Forever"--the little piccolo solo that pricks the air with bursts of aural pinpoint notes. I suppose we could call the piccolo the prickolo... Sounds like the perfect instrument for a nit-picker.
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#80817
09/21/2002 11:37 PM
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As Peter Schickele points out, the only two orchestral instruments that are adjectives are piano and piccolo.
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#80818
09/21/2002 11:47 PM
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What does a bassist play?
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#80819
09/22/2002 12:02 AM
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#80820
09/22/2002 12:05 AM
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What does a bassist play?
I don't know. (He's on third.)
And there are other instruments whose names have other usages - harp, trumpet, drum, horn are also verbs.
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#80821
09/22/2002 12:07 AM
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Dear WW: are you teasing me? I searched for "rimshot" a couple days ago, and site
said it was musical term for drummer beating rim of drum. And I had stupidly thought
it meant sparteye's team scoring without ball touching rim of hoop!
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#80822
09/23/2002 12:03 AM
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addict
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addict
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I've often wondered howcome a woodpecker's brain doesn't get homogenized by his jackhammer excavating squarewave oscillations.
Maybe his brain *isn't in his pecker...
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#80823
09/27/2002 2:58 PM
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enthusiast
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I do not agree, piano is not an adjective, it is an adverbe
piano = slowly
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#80824
09/27/2002 3:25 PM
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In English, piano may be used as either an adjective or an adverb.
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