Arrrrrggggg
On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 8:44 PM, Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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Subject: [lit-ideas] Grice's Eighth Wonder
Grice agreed with the Ancients that the wonders were seven, "but I'll add
an eighth: implicatura" (i.e. the non-logical inference by means of which,
say, "Some students are brilliant" IMPLICATES, but never entails, that
some ain't").
R. Paul was mentioning an eerie silence, now broken.
In a message dated 6/20/2015 10:13:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Aha! "eerie" comes from German "arg" meaning evil, bad. That explains
why sailors used to say "aarrrgggg" all the time. They were all Germans.
Always wondered about that.
Right. But note that 'arg' can mean 'malicious' in Swedish. So you NEVER
know.
"Eery" was first used in English in 1302, to mean "timid, affected by
superstitious fear". It was a north England and Scottish variant of Old
English "earg", as used by King Alfred, to mean (about his enemies):
"cowardly, fearful, craven, vile, wretched, useless" (In his translation
of "Consolation of Philosophy", King Alfred uses it to refer to one of his
servants).
Skeat hypothesises that Old English 'earg' is 'mimetic' "in origin" (he
adds redundantly). He implicates that people, or Old English people, when
scared, do uter, or did utter, "Earg!".
Skeat hypothesises also that Old English "earg" (that gives English
"eerie", since the final "-g" was dropped in Chaucer's time) is from a
now, alas, lost Proto-Germanic root *argaz.
"Not all is lost," Skeat adds, "as the many cognates that Old English
"earg" has is kinda eerie", he adds trying to be funny.
In Old Frisian, we have "erg", meaning "evil, bad". Middle Dutch has
"arch", meaning "bad" (as in "he is a bad student"), hence modern Dutch
"arg"
(meaning the same).
Old High German had "arg", meaning "cowardly, worthless," and this gives
the word Geary is referring to, as heard from sailors: German "arg", in the
sense of "bad", but also "wicked" ("if such a difference can be made,"
Skeat adds -- cfr. Wizard of Oz, "Wicked Witch", but not "Bad Witch").
Old Norse (which was spoken by Old Norsemen) had "argr", used to mean
"unmanly, voluptuous" -- but only twice (and the context is not clear,
since it's a mythological saga).
From Old Norse comes modern Swedish "arg", which means "malicious" and is
sometimes confused with German "arg", which rather means 'cowardly and/or
worthless'.
The use of 'eery' to mean to "cause fear because of strangeness" is
first attested 1792 in Mrs. Willoughby's "Journal" ("He looked eery to me"
-- the odd thing is that 'he' was her husband, Mr. Willoughby -- but then
this was a "Dear Journal" entry, possibly otiose in tone).
The Finnish language has a word, "arka", which means "cowardly".
But the Finn language is not Indo-European and Skeat suggests that the
Finns borrowed 'arka' from the Germans (adding an euphonic final "-a" and
turning the German "g" into a "k" -- for some reason. As Skeat writes,
"Etymology can be fun", implicating sometimes it can't.
Cheers
Speranza
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