Talk:Uncleftish Beholding

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we should probably find a way to link to Anglish Rob* 07:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

round and around

The article mentions that 'round' and 'around' are mistakenly used implying they are of Latin, Greek, or Romance orgin. Wiktionary's entry for 'round' has two etymologies: one that traces it to Old French and one that traces it to Old English. Maybe we should mention that 'round' and 'around' could be of Gemanic or Celtic origins but could also be of Romance origin so it could be or not be a mistake to have them there.--SurrealWarrior 10:54, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The second etymology is irrelevant, since it is for an entirely different meaning of "round": an archaic verb meaning 'whisper'. That's a different word that happens to look and sound the same, like pants in Put on your pants and The dog pants heavily. The OED's etymology says of this one (round, v²) "The normal modern form would have been rown". So Anderson's uses of the words are definitely not of Germanic origin.

But I'm not sure it's a mistake. The Romance loans totally replaced their Old English equivalents, ymbe (cf. German um) and its derivatives. On this one I don't think P.A. had any choice, and I suspect (without evidence) that he knew it and yielded to the unavoidable. Thnidu (talk) 01:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

"Around" or "round" is called "rundt" in Scandinavian languages. Sure it isn't Germanic? After all, both French and English are Indo-European languages. The word may have been unchanged? 85.166.11.196 (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure, but a reliable opinion (OED) says it isn't. After all, the Scandinavian languages have also borrowed from non-Germanic languages. Can you supply data or research to support Germanic origin? Thnidu (talk) 00:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

That paragraph was deleted 04:12, 7 July 2012 as OR. I have restored it, removing the speculation about Anderson's thoughts. I've added the OED's opinion to wikt:Talk:stuff#Etymology. --Thnidu (talk) 22:46, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

German by the way has rund, though not as a preposition. However, it seems to be a derivate of Latin rotundum, which has rota "wheel" in it. I believe German has inherited its own Rad (wheel) together with Latin, but subsequently derived rund.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:D918:2792:809F:FF87 (talk) 13:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

"ordinary"

I put in an external link to what purports to be the essay, posted to some internet forum. But I find the word "ordinary" in it. Isn't that a Latin-derived word? Michael Hardy (talk) 22:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I compared against the published text from the listed source (via Amazon books), and "ordinary" seems to be a typo in the newsgroup posting. Dylan Thurston (talk) 02:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Publication date?

.

Surely someone knows? Thmazing (talk) 06:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

First published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, mid-December 1989. I added the date and a reference.Dylan Thurston (talk) 02:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

linguistic questions

my german etymological dictionary says the german word 'rund' comes from french 'rond', which comes from latin 'rotundus'. nothing in that entry says that it is indo-european.

by the way, i wrote half a book in Siegfriedisch (deutsch gutt sonst geld zuruck), which is a purely germanic german. for 'around' i dont hav to replace anything, i just take 'um'. for 'round' (german 'rund') i use the word 'ballgestaltig' (ball-shaped).

Sensible but irrelevant to Anderson's essay. (I inserted a §head for Anonymous/83.189.86.10/zé do rock's comment.) --Thnidu (talk) 22:03, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

a purely germanic german is eesier to create than a purely germanic english, of course. stil not very simple, especialy becaus all the non germanic names ar also germanized, so Schafsmilchkuchenländlerunddrehspießländlereiland (sheepmilkcakelandersandturnskewerlandersisland - island of the sheep-cheese eeters and of the peeple with the turning skewers (kebab = island of greeks and turks)) is the Siegfriedisch name of Cyprus.

i guess that if the normans hadnt invaded england and english wasnt just an unwritten dialect for centuries, it would hav a mor complicated grammar than it has now.

by the way, my name is zé do rock, i'm brazilian and i liv in germany. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.189.86.10 (talk) 10:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Theory?

Is "theory" the best equivalent for "beholding"? I would suggest "science," which has more sense of "knowing" or seeing. Monado (talk) 21:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Anderson was working (playing) from etymologies and early meanings. Etymologically, "science" is from Latin scientia ~= 'knowledge'. "Theory", according to the OED (I've underlined the relevant senses of the Greek word):

Etymology:  < late Latin theōria, < Greek θεωρία a looking at, viewing, contemplation, speculation, theory, also a sight, a spectacle, abstr. n. < θεωρός ( < *θεαορός ) spectator, looker on, < stem θεα- of θεᾶσθαι to look on, view, contemplate. In mod. use probably < medieval Latin translation of Aristotle. Compare Italian teoria, French théorie

'a looking at, viewing' -> 'beholding'.

Compare, for example, his "bulkbit" for "molecule", i.e. 'a small mass':

< French molécule (1674) < post-classical Latin molecula < classical Latin mōlēs mass (see mole n.2) + -cula -cule suffix [diminutive, i.e. meaning 'little', so "bit"].

--Thnidu (talk) 22:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Judging by the German which my sometimes use Lehre ("doctrine"; or the clearly Latin Konzept) for a theory, maybe "teaching" would have been a better suggestion.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:D918:2792:809F:FF87 (talk) 13:31, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

element names used

"waterstuff" (H), "sunstuff" (He), "stonestuff" (Li), "coalstuff" (C), "chokestuff" (N), "sourstuff" (O), "glasswortstuff" (Na), "flintstuff" (Si), "potashstuff" (K), "iron" (Fe), "germanstuff" (Ge), "redstuff" (Rb), "tin" (Sn), "bluegraystuff" (Cs), "lead" (Pb), "ymirstuff" (U), "aegirstuff" (Np), and "helstuff" (Pu). (Ancient element names are evidently not translated, though I suspect he'd use "swefel" for S as in Old English.)

It would not be too difficult to create more names as needed from this formula, such as "sweetstuff" (Be), "killstuff" (F, from phthor "destructive", which seems more evocative of its character), "newstuff" (Ne), "lightgreenstuff" (Cl), "colourstuff" (Cr), "roosterstuff" (Ga), "moonstuff" (Se), "stinkstuff" (Br), "manmakestuff" (Tc), "purplestuff" (I), "heavystuff" (Ba), "hiddenstuff" (La), "greentwinstuff" (Pr), "hardtogetstuff" (Dy), "wolfstuff" (W), "rinstuff" (Re), "smellstuff" (Os), "rotstuff" (At), "shinestuff" (Rn), "frenchstuff" (Fr), "lightstuff" (Ra), "beamstuff" (Ac), "thorstuff" (Th), "urbeamstuff" (Pa). I imagine Hg would be quicksilver again. I imagine names would not be translated, so Cm would be "curiestuff".

I must confess that while this is amusing stuff, some names give trouble. Promethium has this problem (who's most similar to Prometheus? Loki? But only sort of, no?) This problem also affects niobium and tantalum. Arsenic is also hard. Double sharp (talk) 04:24, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Loki was to the giants what Prometheus was to Men, according to the myth. If Wagner's account of Germanic myth is to be trusted (and it isn't - but well), the surprising translation of "Prometheus" could possibly be "Woden", and Promethium would become Wednestuff, spoken as in Wednesday.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:D918:2792:809F:FF87 (talk) 13:35, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

(Afterthought by the same:) Niobium would sound like a Kriemhiltstuff (or for those who prefer Vösunga saga to the Nibelung's Song, Gudrunstuff). For Tantalum (speaking of that, both of which are actually ghastly choices for element names, but there goes), the easy choice is to replace Niobe's father with Kriemhilt's father: Dankratstuff - though about Dankrat nothing is known, especially he is not a Tantalus-Evil-Guy. Another choice perhaps would be Hagenstuff - there we have the evil guy who nevertheless is proud and praised by many, though he is not, as Tantalus, the founding father of a noble dynasty.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:4506:68F3:AE30:F562 (talk) 18:16, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Amazing work; thank you! I must make a full table! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 02:32, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Time Patrol

My reaction on first reading of Poul Anderson's text in 2004 was "Quick, send the Time Patrol to find out what happened to William the Conqueror". If his Norman conquest had somehow been prevented, the Anglo-Saxon language would have added many fewer words derived from French. Dirac66 (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Loanwords?

This article says

It is designed to illustrate what English might look like without its large number of loanwords from languages such as French, Greek, and Latin, especially with regard to the proportion of scientific words with origins in those languages.

But this includes words like "existence" ("being") and "energy" ("work") and "theory" ("beholding") and "atom" ("uncleft") "forward" ("positive") and "hydrogen" ("waterstuff") and "matter" ("stuff") that evolved from French, Latin, or Greek words, rather than actual loanwords like "police" or "kindergarten" that are recently imported into English without changing them beyond sometimes adapting them to English pronunciation, and underwent no evolution or adaptation after bringing them into English. So "loanword" seems like the wrong term. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:55, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. I just changed it. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)