Re: Etymology of Houbit and haben

On Mar 19, 3:38 pm, "Franz Gnaedinger" wrote:
As for poples 'knee': the city of Basel in Switzerland
is situated on the Rheinknie, on thekneeof the river
Rhine. So it may well be that early villages (huts and
fences built in the wattle and daube technique, using
poplar for uprights and willow for the horizontal
interweaving) on bends or knees of a river gave
rise to poples ...

I apologize for misquoting you in what I just posted about
<po:pulus>. In my elaboration of Trond Engen's suggested etymology,
'poplar uprights' would have been known as *porpoluiia: vel sim.,
small versions of *porpuiia: vel sim. 'oaken uprights'. This is
actually somewhat more plausible than the horizontal version which
resulted from my faulty memory.

A better explanation of poples may be a derivation
via poplar ointment used in a case of an (arthritic)
inflammation of the knee and of sore leg muscles:
the unguent made of buds of the black poplar,
Populus nigra, would have been applied and rubbed
into the hollow of the knee and the muscles on the
back of the leg. Poples originally meant hollow of
the knee, back of the knee; poples 'knee' is post
classical Latin (says my dictionary at home).
In early times, poples can't have meant knee cap,
so Hamp is wrong with his derivation of poples from
*kwekwlo. 'Round' was not the meaning of poples.

What, your dictionary calls Vergil post-classical? That's like
calling Buddy Holly a punk-rocker. See Aeneid 12:926-7. "Incidit
ictus ingens ad terram duplicato poplite Turnus." Here "duplicato
poplite" = "with redoubled knee, bent knee" (cf. Spanish "doblar la
rodilla").

The extension from 'knee' to 'ham, hough' probably comes from the
expression "poplitem succi:dere" = "to undercut the knee, to disable
by cutting the hamstring, to hamstring" being reinterpreted as "to
undercut the ham". For the presumed semantic development of <poples>,
cf. Sp. <rodilla> 'little wheel' > 'kneecap' > 'knee'.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Etymology of Houbit and haben
    ... on thekneeof the river ... A better explanation of poples may be a derivation ... via poplar ointment used in a case of an ... into the hollow of the knee and the muscles on the ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Etymology of Houbit and haben
    ... by cutting the hamstring, to hamstring" being reinterpreted as "to ... poples 'knee' if you can quote Virgil on this. ... my dictionary says that poples means hollow ... CO OC LOP --- to observe ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)
    ... Latin caput German Kopf Haupt English head. ... the balmic poplar is an American tree. ... originally hollow of the knee, ... POL PLO poplo populus peuple, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)
    ... CAP PAC, DIG GID, NAM MAN - does the enforcement ... the balmic poplar is an American tree. ... originally hollow of the knee, ... POL PLO poplo populus peuple, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)
    ... the balmic poplar is an American tree. ... originally hollow of the knee, ... At least one ancient mountain pass connected the Valais ... POL PLO poplo populus peuple, ...
    (sci.lang)