File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 906


Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 21:49:41 -0500
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: MotduJour:"gull"


At 04:36 PM 11/20/97 -0500, you wrote:
>...with all the gustatory stuff going around, I've been looking through the
gu-
>words, and it's clear where these came from, as any one knows who's been
>dying of thirst and got a talk cool glass of water -- glug glug is the sound
>naturally made by throat and liquid.
>	And what a surprise to find the word "gular,' pertaining to the throat,
>from [L. gula, throat].  Now in the midst of lots of gustatory words
there's >"gull." Now, supposedly the now, referring to the familiar bird,
comes from the
>Cornish 'gullan'.  A separate enter for the noun, supposedly from the ME
>'goll,' means 1) "a person easily cheated or misled; 2. a fraud; a cheat; a
>deception; a trick."  There are two separate entries for gull as transitive
>verbs: one is "to cheat; to trick; to dupe" and the other is "o gulp, to
>swallow.
>	Now, everyone knows that gulls will eat anything you throw at them
>regardless
>of how putrid and disgusting it may be.  What gets me is these dictionary
>etymologist are trying to get us to believe that these four (or two) senses of
>gull -- a panivorous

As long as we're on linguistics, this is a nonce-word or hapax legomenon
("thing said once"), omnivore being the commoner term. "Pan" is Greek and
"vore" is Latin.

>bird and duping -- are separate and have nothing to do with
>each other. But we know better -- I mean, isn't duping someone really a matter
>of getting them to 'swallow' something whole, preferably no chewing or
>sniffing?  Doesn't short-order chef necessarily know that the less
>discriminating the palate and the less known about real food, the easier it is
>to get them to swallow.

Could be -- but the only thing that will tell one either definitely yes or
definitely no or somewhere in between is genuine evidence about the history
of the words and their ancestral forms. Till comparative philology (the
ancestor of modern historical linguistics and etymology) came into existence
in the late 18th and 19th centuries, people did basically what you are doing
here -- looked for similarities of sound and sense and postulated affinities
on that basis. You can see it in Varro _De lingua latina_ (1C BCE) passim.
Sometimes it's even right, but not always by any means. The great monument
in English of philology just before it became "scientific" (i.e., by
ambition empirical and analytical) is Horne Tooke's _The Diversions of
Purley_ (1786) which is full of entertaining and completely fanciful
speculations of this kind. Very entertaining!

Skeat produced the first really scientific etymological dictionary in
English in 1882 (the year of Joyce's birth, who has the
semi-autobiographical Stephen Dedalus scan Skeat "by the hour" when he's an
undergrad at University College Dublin -- which had been founded by Joyce's
favorite stylist Newman, who was discussed on this list recently). Skeat
always had to argue against fanciful speculative etymology, which by the
late 19C was called by the philologically trained "folk-etymology" (title of
a book by Abram Smythe Palmer, also 1882), but was still filling the columns
of (e.g.) many an issue of the journal _Notes and Queries_. Skeat waxed
vehement about the need to stamp out f-e:

"If the question were one of chemistry, botany, or any form of science, the
appeal would lie to the facts; and we should be amazed if any one who
asserted that the chief constituents of water are oxygen and nitrogen were
to take offence at contradiction. The whole matter lies in a nutshell; if
etymology is to be scientific, the appeal lies to the facts; and the facts,
in this case, are accurate quotations, with exact references, from all
available authors." (_A Student's Pastime_ [a collection of his articles,
with an autob sketch and linguistic comments at the front], 1895, p. lxxv)

But folk-etymology is still popular. Maybe Horne Tooke is a vampire, is
undead, and has been out biting others. Bram Stoker, call your office. Or
maybe the answer is that "man is an etymologizing animal" (Abram Smythe
Palmer, _Folk-Etymology_, 1882). A lot of folk etymologies become quite
influential. Perhaps f-e is okay as long as people don't think it's anything
but an ex post facto construct -- but they often think f-e is the real
reason for the word's origin I think. Poll people, and I bet you'll find 100
who know "who's here?" led to "hoosier" for every 1 who knows the actual
published reseached history. Or who think that "history" is "his story" and
shows patriarchy at work. Etc. etc. etc.

As for gull, OED2 (available on CDROM for under $300) is one of the best
up-to-date sources in English. (Like any other modern science, linguistics
tries to operate by formulating hypotheses which are always subject to
critique and revision and abandonment in favor of hopefully better
hypotheses; later-19C sources or even earlier-20C sources will not always
tell you the same thing as recent sources. -- And if you really need to
know, don't rely on a college dictionay or an abridged etc. etc. They
simplify and are not always up-to-date or up-to-snuff.)

Here's what OED2 has to say about various gulls. It will be clear that some
are definitely related, some are definitely not related, and some are of
presently unclear relationship. You asked!!! But even when there is no
actual historical relationship, the fact that two words have come to sound
identical or almost identical leads people to want to find patterns and
affiliations, and the fact  of the matter is that throughout the documented
history of langauge folk-etymologies (i.e., ahistorical, nonscientific
etymologies) have often often often affected language-change and semantic
development.

gull n.1 (the "boid"), perhaps from Welsh gwylan, Cornish guilan = Breton
goelann (whence Frankish go=EBland), Old Irish foilenn (mod.Ir.
faoileann):---Old Celtic *voilenno-; cf. Breton goelaff to weep. I.e., of
unclear but probably (given the weight of the current evidence) celtic
ancestry, and perhaps not genuinely historically realted to any of the other
"gulls" below.

gull n.2 (an unfledged bird), Prob. a subst. use of gull a. (meaning
"yellow"), which in turn comes from Old Norse [i.e., Viking] gul-r (Dan.,
Swed. gul) yellow.

gull n.3 (a dupe or fool), Of doubtful and perh. mixed origin; sense 1 would
be natural as a transferred use of gull n.2, but it is also possible that
the n. may be f. gull v.3 to delude, and that this vb. may be an application
of gull v.1 2 to gorge, "cram."

gull v.3 (to cheat, fool), related to gull n.3, but it is uncertain whether
as derivative or as source; in the latter case, this verb may be a
transferred use of gull v.1; cf. similar uses of stuff, cram; this
supposition is favoured by some early examples, e.g. quot. dated circa 1600
in sense 1 in OED gull v.3.

gull n.4 (throat, gullet, mouth), possibly (?) a variant of gool (meaning
"small stream or outlet," which is from Norman Anglo-French gole, goule
[which is a specific use of Old French gole, goule = throat; cf. Old French
goulet = narrow channel, trench]. See also gole, gull), or possibly a
variant of gole n.2 (meaning "stream, channel"; possibly (?) a variant of
gool, gull).

gull v.2 (to make channels or ruts, to sweep away), from gull n.4.

gull v.1 (to guzzle), possibly (?) f. gull n.4; cf. Du. gullen _absorbere,
ingurgitare, vorare' (Kilian) and obs. F. engouler.

gull n.5 (a not fully-grown fish), cf. Dutch gul (16th c. gulle) small
codfish (ulterior origin unclear).



Fun, huh????

But your folk-etymologizing below is something like the basis for a lot of
the paronomasia and neologism in Finnegans Wake -- all the wordplay there
ain't exactly historical-etymology based, y'know:

>	So, no, if one grasps *context* one will see that "gull" is not so much about
>birds or deception as it is an identification of commentary on one phenomenal
>origin: the bird-brainedness of the indiscriminate palate. How gullible to
those
>guys at Webster's think we are.
>	Hmm.  A little bread and paté would hit the spot right now! Bye.
>
>Reg
>Chief Etymologist
>

Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu



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