[phorese]

> In Icelandic, a compass is a direction-shower, and a microscope a small-watcher.

I find this somehow very poignant :) What exactly does the author think "microscope" means? From Wikipedia:

> microscope (from the Ancient Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and σκοπεῖν, skopeîn, "to look" or "see")

[ubernostrum]

There's some historical baggage here.

Consider a man being helped along the street by his friends. He's stumbling, often falling over, unable to keep going in a straight line. A police officer walks up and asks them what's wrong.

Scenario 1: his friends say "He's drunk off his ass."

Scenario 2: his friends say "He has imbibed intoxicating beverages to excess."

To many native English speakers, if you presented those two as skits, they'd find the second one much funnier. And the reason would be the use of "high-class" vocabulary in a decidedly low-class situation (a drunk stumbling along the street).

Now consider the English word hydrogen. And then consider the German word Wasserstoff. Native English speakers sometimes find the German word funny -- it sounds just like "water stuff"! But they don't reflect on the fact that "hydrogen" means essentially the same thing when you look at the Greek roots.

This happens because words with Germanic roots are often "low-class" in modern English, while words with obvious Greek and Latin roots are high-class. And that... is because modern English developed after the (Romance-language-speaking) Normans took over England from the (Germanic-language-speaking) Anglo-Saxons. The vocabulary of the Normans, since they were the ruling class, is prestigious in modern English, while the vocabulary of their Anglo-Saxon subjects isn't.

And guess what language family Icelandic is in?

[donquichotte]

These descriptive names also exist in German:

- turtle: Schildkröte (shield toad)

- sloth: Faultier (lazy animal)

- glove: handschuh (hand shoe)

- squirrel: Eichhörnchen (oak horn. Admittedly that does not make much sense.)

- slug: Nacktschnecke (naked snail)

- headlight: Scheinwerfer (shine thrower)

- gum: Zahnfleisch (tooth meat)

- vacuum cleaner: Staubsauger (dust sucker)

- squid: Tintenfisch (ink fish)

- plane: Flugzeug (fly thing)

- vehicle: Fahrzeug (drive thing)

[adimitrov]

Your etymology to Eichhörnchen is a folk etymology. It's a diminuitive of the Old High German "eihhorno", which in turn derives from Proto-Germanic " * aikwernô". The root of "Hörnchen" is thus _not_ "Horn", but Proto-Indo-European " * wer-", which just means "squirrel." Its other meaning is "to heed, to notice." I guess people thought squirrels to be excessively observant creatures. Latin "viverra" (ferret) is also related, and Czech "veverka" (squirrel.)

Also, "Eich" has nothing to do with "Oak." Instead, it derives from PIE " * aig-" which means "to move quickly."

EDIT: HN's pseudo-markdown formatting is a plague unto mankind. The hoops I had to jump through to prefix an asterisk to a word…

EDIT2: If you click around on the Wiktionary page for Eichhörnchen, you can find lots of fun details to its etymology. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eichh%C3%B6rnchen

[posterboy]

It's rather obvious that the archaic meaning has been largely lost and therefore that folk etymology informed the morpheme's convergence to "oak". The GP is still silly though, because e.g. the "fly thing" is an inappropriate loan translation - "flight gear" would be more appropriate (cp. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Zeug), whereas a "plane (sheet) of air" isn't any more meaningful.

[adimitrov]

Absolutely. Folk etymology is actually a productive process; in the literature, you'll also read "reanalysis", as in, a word's components which are not understood are reanalysed as something familiar. Compare English "sparrowgrass" — asparagus, or bridegroom, where groom is originally "gome", meaning "man" in Old English, and not "groom" in the modern (i.e. Early-Modern-English) sense.

The translation of Zeug, and especially -zeug is contentious. Stuff, gear, tool, utility, means. There are many ways in which it is used in German: Flugzeug, something that flies (or that you use to fly with); but Schwimmzeug is not a boat. Instead it means the "stuff" you need to go swimming, like goggles and a swimsuit. Schlagzeug (Schlag: beat) is neither something you use to hit somebody with, nor all the things you need in order to go a-hitting. It's a drum kit.

[picturesal]

Not "plane"=sheet, but "plane" from the Greek "planos"=wandering. (Same root as planet=wandering star).

An aeroplane is a wanderer through the air.

[tullianus]

Etymonline disagrees; -plane here is from French planer "to soar," ultimately from Latin planus, "flat." http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=aeroplane

[azeirah]

I suppose you got your eichhornen from us Dutchies. The story goes that a Dutch trader went to the UK, saw a squirrel, and wondered what it was. He pointed at the squirrel, asking a local "what's that?", the local thought he was pointing at the acorn the squirrel was holding and replied "that's an acorn". And that's when the "eekhoorn" was born.

[mercer]

Despite your sibling comment being more convincing, I rather prefer this explanation :).

I've heard a similar tale about 'wisdom tooth'. The story goes that it's a translation of the Dutch 'verstandskies'. 'Kies' means tooth (molar?), and 'verstand' can mean 'far-standing', so referring to the position of the tooth.

However, because 'verstand' more commonly means 'mind', it was mistranslated.

Now, Germans also use the 'wisdom' version, and Belgians use 'wijsheidstand', where 'wijsheid' is another of wisdom, so probably this story is incorrect. Many of us Dutchies still choose to believe it, however, and so we just have to conclude that both the Germans and Belgians are just kind of silly for making the same mistake.

[adimitrov]

I'll just continue spoiling your Dutch fun :-)

It's from Greek σωφρονιστήρ /sophonister/ through Latin (dens sapientiae). It's been "Wisdom tooth" all along. The story goes that these teeth appear approximately at the age where one becomes "wise."

Ha. Few of the people whose wisdom teeth came and went (painfully) are wise already. Increased life spans and all that…

Then again, sophos does not just mean wise in Greek, but also just clever, cunning, or prudent. ;-)

[mercer]

Pish, what do the Greeks know!

Thanks for your comments though. I love this kind of stuff!

[blipmusic]

As someone who is only half a linguist, but who work closely with established researchers, this odd variant of "language exotism" is far too common, even in 2017. For others, it's far too English-centric (dismissals from well-established researchers such as "but it's simple to express this information-dense, single word in language X just by saying (insert long, not very representative English translation of language X word here)... etc)