On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote:
> why do you scratch your head? > > A grape is a berry of the vine. the /owa/ part of rowan has the same > etymology as the word uva (Latin for grape), related also to oin- as in > oinophile from the Greek word, which also gave rise to the English words > wine and vine, through French vin, vigne etc. No doubt right back to the > proto-Indo-European. Your word ryabina looks to me as though it has a > similar etymology as rowan with the /b/ having substituted for /v/ or /w/, > which is very common. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some European > languages used the same word for both berry and grape. > > Calling it a rowan berry may be one of those great examples of the same > meaning being inadvertently repeated in a phrase, in this case being 'berry > berry'. This sort of thing is found a lot where one language group has > replaced another. The conqueror points to some natural feature and asks > 'What is that called'. The vanquished native replies 'it is the Don' meaning > 'it's the river, you idiot'*. The mighty conqueror says 'we shall call it > the River Don'. And so it flows quietly on. And that's why we have a Don River right here in Toronto. Because Toronto's full of idiots. Mind you, it's more of concrete-lined open sewer than a river, which I guess makes us even more idiotic, doesn't it? cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
