Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales

On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 10:28:54 -0700 (PDT),
<analyst41@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:26435655-6ef8-4997-8c48-04b05a05f03f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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.)

No one etymologizes 'bear' or 'wolf' as 'honey eater'; that
etymology applies to the Slavic words akin to Russian
<medved> 'bear'. Similarly, Welsh <melfochyn> is
etymologically 'honey-pig' (<mel> 'honey', <mochyn> 'pig'),
and Lithuanian <lokys> is 'licker'. There is nothing
fanciful about these etymologies; on the contrary, they're
quite straightforward. The euphemisms that they incorporate
aren't even particularly fanciful.

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.

As Joachim has already pointed out, none of this supports
the claim made in your subject line. I'll add that you've
provided exactly *one* example of a disputed etymology,
which wouldn't be proof that *most* etymologies are
fairytales even if uncertainty did equate to fairytale.
.

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