Misdivided creations
January 28th, 2009 at 10:19 pm (Vocabulary)
Recently, I learned that several words in common use are in fact misbegotten coinages, formed by an imperfect split between the article and the noun.
- “Adder” came from “a nadder”
- “Newt” came from “an ewt”
- “Nickname” came from “an ekename” (an “eke” name was an “extra” name)
- “Nuncle” (now obsolete) came from “mine uncle” (a respectful address)
- “for the nonce” came from “for then anes” (obsolete “the ones”)
This kind of word is referred to as a “misdivision” or (more technically) an improper “metanalysis“; actually, there are lots of terms for this error: rebracketing, juncture loss, junctural metanalysis, false splitting, and refactorization, according to Wikipedia.
The evolution of language (and how we can change right along with it) never ceases to amaze me. I’ll have to keep an eye out for more of these!
Terran said,
January 29, 2009 at 11:12 am
I love etymology! Language is so byzantine and fascinating.
I was aware of this effect, and I’d heard about nuncle (though I think I had the story backward). We also have variants of this that come via other languages. Algebra and alcohol, for example, both derive from Arabic, in which “al” is the definite article. So they’re “the jebra” and “the kohl”, respectively. (The story on alcohol is fascinating in its own right — check out the OED’s etymology and history of that word.) Ditto for a number of other English “al” words, including “alchemy”, which appears to be a bastard Arabic/Greek hybrid. :-)
For a really fun exercise in etymology, sometime look up the roots of “maul” and “mall”.
Susan said,
January 30, 2009 at 4:31 am
And now people have a tendency to say “a whole nother ballgame.” :)
wkiri said,
January 30, 2009 at 10:45 am
Thanks for all of the other examples, Terran and Susan! (I guiltily admit to saying “whole nother” myself on occasion ;) I guess it should be “a whole other”, but somehow “nother” is more satisfying!)