| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 743.1 | Instead of pushing up daisies... | PASTIS::MONAHAN | humanity is a trojan horse | Wed Dec 06 1989 20:33 | 4 |
| Dent-de-lion is almost certainly the derivation. Pissenlit is the
more usual French word, and means what you think. A French dictionary
confirms this, and also points out that if you are eating them by the
roots it implies that you are dead.
|
| 743.2 | I like cats, lightly grilled | WELMT2::HILL | Technology is my Vorpal sword | Wed Dec 06 1989 21:23 | 11 |
| Re .0
<start_rathole>
FWIW
The UK version of the cartoon refers to cats as either the buttercups
or the couch grass of life.
<end_rathole>
|
| 743.3 | Zoob-lyeva? | LEDS::HAMBLEN | skazhi kishmish! | Wed Dec 06 1989 21:44 | 13 |
|
< I am collecting the etymology of the word for 'dandelion' in
< as many languages as possible.
Well, the Russian equivalent, according to my Romanov's, is
(pardon the amateurish tranliteration) _oduvanchik_.
No hint of lion, or _lyev_.
No hint of tooth, or _zoob_.
Sorry... I liked your idea.
Dave
|
| 743.4 | Lions in Norway, too | OSLACT::HENRIKW | | Thu Dec 07 1989 11:33 | 4 |
| 743.5 | More | MARVIN::KNOWLES | Running old protocol | Thu Dec 07 1989 15:43 | 22 |
| 743.6 | And now, a word from Israel | TAV02::SID | | Thu Dec 07 1989 16:06 | 11 |
| In Hebrew, dandelion is "shen ha-arye" which means of course tooth
of the lion.
I'm not sure what all of this is supposed to prove, but
another example of what was discussed in the previous reply
is the trans-lingual connection between "what" and "water".
English: what / water
German: wass / wasser
Latin-based: qua / aqua
Hebrew: Ma / mayim
|
| 743.7 | In Swedish | STKHLM::RYDEN | It takes two to tangle | Fri Dec 08 1989 12:36 | 5 |
|
And in Swedish: Maskros, where "mask" means worm and "ros" rose, of
course. Very poetic, eh?
Bo
|
| 743.8 | Greek to me | OSLACT::HENRIKW | | Fri Dec 08 1989 13:19 | 12 |
| For what it's worth, this whole lion business
seems to have started in Greece, where they
called the dandelion "leontodon". In those
days, they actually had lions walking about
in South-Eastern Europe, so lions' teeth were
probably a common sight to botanist pioneers:
- Hey, what should we call this flower?
- Never mind, look behind you!
- Damn!...the lion!
H
|
| 743.9 | | MARVIN::KNOWLES | Running old protocol | Fri Dec 08 1989 17:06 | 10 |
| 743.10 | at least, it's an animal....;-) | IJSAPL::ELSENAAR | Fractal of the universe | Fri Dec 08 1989 20:13 | 9 |
| I guess all lions were killed by horses just before the Dutch border...
"Dandelion" in Dutch: Paardebloem. Horse's flower.
Etymology? Well, it's this botanist from a few replies back, shouting :Damn! The
lion!
His colleague answered: "Did you see that! My horse flew 'ere!"
;-)
Arie
|
| 743.11 | | ULYSSE::LIRON | | Mon Dec 18 1989 01:15 | 9 |
| Since you were talking lion's tooth, there's also the
mouse's ear, in Greek "muosotos", which gives "myosotis".
The myosotis is also known as "Forget-me-not" in English;
and "Vergissmeinnicht" in German, and "Ne-m'oubliez-pas" in French.
Any other translations ?
roger
|
| 743.12 | | ULYSSE::LIRON | | Mon Dec 18 1989 14:30 | 40 |
| re .6
> is the trans-lingual connection between "what" and "water".
> English: what / water
> German: wass / wasser
> Latin-based: qua / aqua
> Hebrew: Ma / mayim
Interesting research on phonetic connections (unlike
the "dandelion" stuff, which is based on semantics), but ...
> English: what / water
> German: wass / wasser
No surprise here, since "what" and "was" derive from a common
pre-Germanic root (something like 'wa' -- saw it some time ago
in the COD). And "water" and "Wasser" are in the family too.
English is descended from old Germanic languages (Angle, Saxon...),
and has a very large common base with modern German. Examples of
such similarities between the two languages are easy to find.
> Latin-based: qua / aqua
Ah, but Latin for "what" is "quid", so the pair would be
quid / aqua
which is not too significant (many other Latin words contain a q)
French blows it all with
quoi / eau
> Hebrew: Ma / mayim
Well ... I won't argue.
It was a nice try !
roger
|
| 743.13 | More vegetarian surrogates | OSL10::HENRIKW | | Mon Dec 18 1989 18:45 | 12 |
| Re .11 - I can't seem to remember what myosotis is
called in Norwegian...:^) OK, it's called
"forglemmegei" (forglem-meg-ei) - no big surprise.
(But, as Gertrude Stein would have said:
A Myosot is a myosot is a myosotis)
Another more concrete animal image is the
coltsfoot - "hestehov" (horse's hoof) in
Norwegian.
Henrik
|