On Fri, 30 May 2014 21:31:40 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
Post by Athel Cornish-BowdenPost by TraddictPost by TraddictBy definition, an onomatopoeia is "phonic", i.e. it imitates natural
sounds, which give it its meaning.
How about words created after other words, the sound of which they
adopt without any logic in their shape? I'm thinking of words like
"tawdry" coined after "Saint Audrey" (where the "Sain" part is
obliterated) or "legerdemain" apparently coined after the French phrase
"léger de main"? I've always wondered whether there is a proper term
for that kind of "lexical onomatopoeia".
I'm not sure I understand your point, in particular "without any logic".
My point is that derivatives of words follow a certain logic. If you
take the word "genocide" for example, it's derived from latin "genus" +
"occidere", the roots of both of which have been picked up to form a
new word whose meaning in effect reflects the combined meanings of
"genus" + "occidere". Now with "tawdry", what you have is a very
approximate phonetical rendition of "Saint Audrey" (which in itself
doesn't mean anything) so that "tawdry" has only come to adopt its
current meaning through a series of far-fetched associations.
I find your thoughts on "tawdry" very strange. Maybe you're thinking
that "St Audrey" is pronounced in English as it would be in French, but
it isn't. The "St" is a very weak syllable with barely even a schwa as
vowel, and "tawdry" is pronounced exactly the same after loss of the
very weak first syllable. Nothing remotely strange about that. As far
as I can there is nothing far-fetched about the association between the
adjective and the saint's day, either.
Origins of "tawdry" from the OED.
tawdry, n. and adj.
Forms: 15 tauthrie, tawdrie (see next), 16 taudrey, tawdery, 16–17
taudry, 16– tawdry.
Etymology: As noun short for tawdry lace n., q.v.; hence referring
to the showy but cheap quality of these in the 17th century.
A. n.
†1. Short for tawdry lace n. Obs.
1612...
2. Cheap and pretentious finery.
B. adj.
1.
a. Of the nature of cheap finery; showy or gaudy without real value.
etc.
tawdry lace, n.
Etymology: See T n. Initialisms 2.
Obs.
In the earliest quotation St. Audrey's lace, i.e. lace of St.
Audrey, Etheldrida, or Æþelðryþ (daughter of Anna king of East
Anglia, and patron saint of Ely): A silk ‘lace’ or necktie, much
worn by women in the 16th and early 17th c.; sometimes taken as a
type of female adornments. [As to the origin of the name, it is
told, originally by Bæda ( Eccl. Hist. iv. ix.), and after him by
Ælfric in the Life of St. Æþelðryth, Virgin ( Ælfric's Lives of
Saints, ed. Skeat, 1885, xx. ll. 49–60), that St. Audrey died of a
tumour in her throat, which she considered to be a just retribution,
because in her youth she had for vain show adorned her neck with
manifold splendid necklaces, ‘forðan þe ic on iugoðe frætwede mine
swuran mid mænigfealdum swurbeagum’. In the 16th century, N.
Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury under Philip and Mary (died
1588), after relating the story in his (Latin) Historia Anglicana
Ecclesiastica (Douay 1622), adds ‘Our women of England are wont to
wear about the neck a certain necklace [torquem quendam ], formed
of thin and fine silk, perchance in memory of what we have told’.
See also, more particularly, quot. 1674 below. Skinner in his
Etymologicon (licensed 1668), explains Tawdry lace as ‘Ties,
fringes, or bands, bought at the fair held at the fane of St.
Etheldreda, as rightly points out Doctor Th. Henshaw’. There is no
| discrepancy between the two statements. ‘St. Audrey's laces’ would
| naturally be largely offered for sale at her fair, and though this
| did not give the article its name, it doubtless made it more widely
| known, and led to the production of cheap and showy forms for the
| ‘country wenches’ (see Nares s.v.), which at length gave to tawdry
| its later connotation.]
T, n.
III.
6. T at the end of a word has sometimes been attached to the word
following when this begins with a vowel: hence the to adj., the tone
pron. and adj., the tother pron. and adj.; see also discussion of ?.
forms at it pron., adj., and n.1 The final t of Saint has in
several cases been popularly prefixed to the name, as in Tandrew,
Tandry = St. Andrew; Tann = St. Ann, hence Tanswell; Tantolin = St.
Antholin; Tooly = St. Olave; see also tanton n., tantony n., tawdry
n. and adj.
This change from "St Audrey" to "Taudrey", now spelled as "tawdry" with
the same pronunciation is metanalysis (or "rebracketing"[1]).
1914 O. Jespersen Mod. Eng. Gram. II. v. 141, I have ventured to
coin the word ‘metanalysis’ for the phenomenon frequent in all
languages that words or word-groups are by a new generation
analyzed differently from the analysis of a former age.
1957 G. V. Smithers Kyng Alisaunder II. 138 jker < OE. nicor by
a process of metanalysis in which an initial consonant is treated
as the final consonant of the preceding word, or a final consonant
is attracted into the beginning of the next word.
Other examples of metanalysis are "a napron" > "an apron", "an ewt" > "a
newt" and "a nadder" > "an adder".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebracketing
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)