Job Discussion Forums

[Sashadroogie]

Yes, good example. Rather like 'orange' and 'norange'. However, how comfortable do we feel, knowing that our 'correct' standard is based on ignorant misunderstanding? Not very, is my answer. So, we must resist the hordes of linguistic vandals, check any move to corrupt further the language, and stem the rising tide of babble!

And thank you for the welcome: it is good to be back.

[jonniboy]

[johnslat]

Dear jonniboy,

Right you are:

"That makes a good story, and good stories tend to spread. And indeed there is a process of language evolution called re-bracketing, where word boundaries change over time.

But good stories are not always true; sometimes they are just urban legends. And that�s the case with �noranges�.

A re-bracketing does appear to have taken place, but not in English. The original Old French word for an orange�une norenge�became re-bracketed as une orange, and from there the word came into English as an orange. Beyond Old French, the word probably originates from nāraṅga, the Sanskrit word for �orange tree�.

Genuine re-bracketings have occurred with other English words. For example, an adder (snake) was a naddre in Middle English, an apron was a napron, an auger was a nauger, a newt was an eute, a nickname was an eke name, and an umpire was a noumpere. But an orange was never a norange in English.

The color orange was named after the fruit. So how was that color described before the fruit was known in England? The Old English name for the color is geoluhread�literally yellow-red."

http://quezi.com/11018

"Had it not been for the linguistic process known as false splitting or juncture loss, the angry, anguished cry "Kill the ump" could have been "Kill the nump." In the case of umpire we can almost see this process in action by studying the Middle English Dictionary entry for noumpere, the Middle English ancestor of our word. Noumpere comes from the Old French nonper, made up of non, "not," and per, "equal": as an impartial arbiter of a dispute between two people, the arbiter is not equivalent to or a partisan of either of them. In Middle English the earliest recorded form is noumper (about 1350); the earliest dated form without an n is owmpere, from 1440. How the n was lost can be seen if we compare the sequence a noounpier in a text written in 1426-1427 with the sequence an Oumper from a text written probably around 1475. The n of noumpere has here become attached to the indefinite article, giving us an instead of a and, eventually, umpire instead of *numpire. The same process of false splitting is responsible for the forms apron and adder, originally napron and naddre, as well as many other words that once began with n. False splitting also caused some words that originally began with vowels to have an n from a preceding indefinite article added on, such as nickname (from the phrase an eke name) and newt (from an eute)."

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/umpire


Which make me wonder - are there any "rural myths"?

[johntpartee]

I had never heard the "norange", I thought Sash was being himself again, maybe.

Hey, Sash, you're great, I love ya, I mean it, now get outta here!

[Sashadroogie]

I'm always myself, hic! Except when I'm not....

[johnslat]

Dear Sasha,

Yup, then you're often beside yourself.

Regards,
John