3 ms·

Other interesting rebracketing/juncture loss: an napron => an apron a nauger => an auger a nadder => an adder And there's probably a bunch more for future c

Other interesting rebracketing/juncture loss: an napron => an apron a nauger => an auger a nadder => an adder And there's probably a bunch more for future centuries [1]. [1] https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/

XaspR8d 8y ago
One of my favorite cases of reanalysis gone amok is: [(xocalia + a'tl) => chocola-tl => chocolate => choco-] + [(al-kuhl => alcohol) + (-ique => -ic) => -holic] => chocoholic which, having contributions from Nahuatl, Arabic, and Latin results in a word with morphemes originating in 3 distinct language families. On the topic of article rebracketing, I also love "an eke-name" (an extra name) becoming "a nickname".
- bonzini 8y ago
  In Italian we have the Latin word "luscinia" (nightingale) that became "usignolo". -olo is just a suffix that means small, the interesting part is that at some point people started confusing the initial L for the article l'.
- NihilumExNil 8y ago
  > an eke-name I'm not buying this. "eke" as "also" may give the sense "by-name", alright. What irks me is the lack of explanation of the rebracketing, which would appear like a mistake. But "nick of time" and the like would make a reanalysis as "short name" plausible, so not a mistake but a funny play of words.
baddox 8y ago
Rebracketing also happened a lot when incorporating words from other languages, from a misunderstanding of the other languages (often the misunderstanding occurred first in another language before being borrowed by English). "Alligator" is from Spanish "el lagarto" ("the lizard"). Tons of terms from Arabic include "al," the Arabic word for "the": Alchemy, algorithm, algebra, alfalfa, alkaline, alcohol, alcove. Rebracketing also leads to some interesting affix/root usage: The root of "cybernetics" is "cybern," but "cyber" is frequently used to form related words. "Helicopter" comes from "helix" ("spiral") and "pteron" ("wing"), but it is generally split into "heli"/"helo" and "copter" for the formation of related words.
rlonn 8y ago
Anyone here have any idea how it came about that the element called Tungsten in english, is called Wolfram in swedish? Tungsten is obviously from swedish, as "tung" means "heavy" and "sten" means "rock"? (and Tungsten is indeed an extremely heavy metal). Wolfram, OTOH looks very much like an english word. Is it common for two languages to swap words like this?
- scns 8y ago
  It was named by a german chemist, it is volfram in swedish. Check out the german wikipediaentry and try sending it through translate.
azernik 8y ago
For a fun examplen from another language, consider the Arabic version of the name Alexander. On hearing the city name "Alexandria" in many places (most notably Egypt), Arabs assumed the start was the Arabic definite article: Al-exandria. In addition, they swapped the "k" and "s" sounds, in an inverse of the African-American Vernacular formation of "aks" from "ask", making the city name "Al-iskandaria". To complete the ridiculous chain, they then back-formed the historical figure's name from the cities named after him: Iskandar.
deepspace 8y ago
My favorite one is "umpire". The origin of the word is the Old French nonper which means "not even", referring to an extra person arbitrating a match between two "even" teams. The "per" part of "nonper" originated from the Latin "par" meaning "even" which is also the root of the modern English words "parity" and the "par" in "par for the course". "Nonper" then made it's way into Middle English as "noumpere", and "a noumpere" soon became "an oumpere" via re-bracketing. The word pair then evolved into "an oumper", which finally became "an umpire" in modern English.

XaspR8d 8y ago

One of my favorite cases of reanalysis gone amok is: [(xocalia + a'tl) => chocola-tl => chocolate => choco-] + [(al-kuhl => alcohol) + (-ique => -ic) => -holic] => chocoholic which, having contributions from Nahuatl, Arabic, and Latin results in a word with morphemes originating in 3 distinct language families. On the topic of article rebracketing, I also love "an eke-name" (an extra name) becoming "a nickname".

bonzini 8y ago
In Italian we have the Latin word "luscinia" (nightingale) that became "usignolo". -olo is just a suffix that means small, the interesting part is that at some point people started confusing the initial L for the article l'.
NihilumExNil 8y ago
> an eke-name I'm not buying this. "eke" as "also" may give the sense "by-name", alright. What irks me is the lack of explanation of the rebracketing, which would appear like a mistake. But "nick of time" and the like would make a reanalysis as "short name" plausible, so not a mistake but a funny play of words.

baddox 8y ago

Rebracketing also happened a lot when incorporating words from other languages, from a misunderstanding of the other languages (often the misunderstanding occurred first in another language before being borrowed by English). "Alligator" is from Spanish "el lagarto" ("the lizard"). Tons of terms from Arabic include "al," the Arabic word for "the": Alchemy, algorithm, algebra, alfalfa, alkaline, alcohol, alcove. Rebracketing also leads to some interesting affix/root usage: The root of "cybernetics" is "cybern," but "cyber" is frequently used to form related words. "Helicopter" comes from "helix" ("spiral") and "pteron" ("wing"), but it is generally split into "heli"/"helo" and "copter" for the formation of related words.

rlonn 8y ago

Anyone here have any idea how it came about that the element called Tungsten in english, is called Wolfram in swedish? Tungsten is obviously from swedish, as "tung" means "heavy" and "sten" means "rock"? (and Tungsten is indeed an extremely heavy metal). Wolfram, OTOH looks very much like an english word. Is it common for two languages to swap words like this?

scns 8y ago
It was named by a german chemist, it is volfram in swedish. Check out the german wikipediaentry and try sending it through translate.

azernik 8y ago

For a fun examplen from another language, consider the Arabic version of the name Alexander. On hearing the city name "Alexandria" in many places (most notably Egypt), Arabs assumed the start was the Arabic definite article: Al-exandria. In addition, they swapped the "k" and "s" sounds, in an inverse of the African-American Vernacular formation of "aks" from "ask", making the city name "Al-iskandaria". To complete the ridiculous chain, they then back-formed the historical figure's name from the cities named after him: Iskandar.

deepspace 8y ago

My favorite one is "umpire". The origin of the word is the Old French nonper which means "not even", referring to an extra person arbitrating a match between two "even" teams. The "per" part of "nonper" originated from the Latin "par" meaning "even" which is also the root of the modern English words "parity" and the "par" in "par for the course". "Nonper" then made it's way into Middle English as "noumpere", and "a noumpere" soon became "an oumpere" via re-bracketing. The word pair then evolved into "an oumper", which finally became "an umpire" in modern English.