Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales

analyst41@xxxxxxxxxxx (in sci.lang):

From our own Chris Culver's review of Don Ringe's book:

start quote:

Ringe has maintained correspondence with today's other eminent Indo-
Europeanists, and his book includes a number of ideas which, though
hitherto unavailable in print, have been floating around in e-mails
for some time. Also, though Ringe generally sticks to the consensus
view in his reconstructions, he occasionally expresses his own
opinions on matters, and these are often thought-provoking. For
example, for the ancestor of English "bear (animal)", Ringe would
posit PIE *gwer "wild animal" (cf. Gr. ther, Latin ferus) instead of
the usual conjecture that it is from a tabooistic circumlocution
meaning "the brown one".

end quote.

there are any number of fanciful etymologies for "bear" , "wolf" etc.
("the brown one", "the tearer", "honey eater" etc.)

So one must bear in mind that erroneous etymologies are another source
of noise in reconstructions and I was surprised to find that even
something so written about as "bear" is subject to scholarly
disagreement.

The expectable noise doesn't make it fairy-tales. You are misusing the
word "proof". "Evidence" would be more adequate, although I don't think
that's not evidence for most etymologies being fairy-tales either.

Joachim
.

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