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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
daffodil (but not tulip!)
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833 |
 and, from The Story of English by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil (the companion volume to the PBS series, which I missed, dammit), in part of a passage about the Renaissance: In these times sailors were the messengers of language. Part of their vocabulary would have been "Low Dutch" words like fokkinge, kunte, krappe (probably derived from Latin) and bugger (originally a Dutch borrowing from the French), words that are sometimes inaccurately said to be "Anglo-Saxon."Who knew?! Okay, I have to admit that's one bit of info I retained from reading this book, ages ago....Now when I say naughty sweary words, instead of adding, "Pardon my French," which I used to do, I say, "Pardon my Low Dutch." People laugh but they don't get it....And I know, I know - it would be shorter and easier not to say any of it, from the sweary words on through to the pardon-seeking addendum...!  The passage goes on to say: From the poetry of Spenser (who invented braggadocio in The Faerie Queen) to the slang of the sailors who defeated the Armada, there was, throughout English society, a new urge to use English to communicate.(It further notes, The importance of the Renaissance to the English language was that it added between 10,000 and 12,000 new words to the lexicon.)
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
That's fascinating, mg: I must consider whether to adopt your "Pardon my Low Dutch" phrase meself! Of course, if Mrs Rhuby should swear, I could always say, "Pardon my Old Dutch", couldn't I? 
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
The 'old' is probably best avoided, since she would obviously be feeling aggravated already, or she wouldn't be swearing. 
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Nah, leave it aht, John - if she's that stropped an' "old" 'ere or there don;t signify!
'Sides, "Me Dutch" don't 'ave the same ring as, "Me Ol' Dutch," nah does it?
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
In a brazen display of my "overuse it to death word of the week", namely, hubris, I will say that I disagree with the contention that "fuck" came from Old Dutch rather than AS. I think M-W's etymology, which lists the Dutch fokken as cognate, makes perfect sense. Given that all those stinking Huns probalby spoke similar languages, how can these pundits pontificate so pointedly that the sexy Angles stole fokken? Isn't it at least as likely that both they and the early tulpenklompenvolk had very similar words for the same rather essential function?
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 725
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 725 |
spoken like a Dutch uncle, sjm!
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Uncle Pieter from Nether Nether Land?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Whatcha wanna bet they're cognates and there's an accepted IE word for it?
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I wonder if we're looking at two different phenomena here. The first is the word fuck in its literal meaning and the other is fucking as a general intensifier. While we've probably had the former in the language since before the beginning the latter usage may have come into the language relatively recently.
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