English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:35

!!hang

KitSox

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Where's the milk?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Shit.

KitSox

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cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang e

KitSox

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e
-e----e----

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:35

!!hang i

KitSox

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e, i
-e--i-e----

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang t

KitSox

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e, i, t
-e-ti-e-t--

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang a

KitSox

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a, e, i, t
-e-ti-e-ta-

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:38

!!hang s

KitSox

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a, e, i, s, t
se-ti-e-ta-

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang sentimental

KitSox

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Correct! The word is sentimental.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang

KitSox

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cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:39

!!hang e

KitSox

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e
--------e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang a

KitSox

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a, e
-a------e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang c

KitSox

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a, c, e
-ac-----e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:45

!!hang t

KitSox

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a, c, e, t
-act----e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang i

KitSox

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a, c, e, i, t
-act--i-e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang v

KitSox

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a, c, e, i, t, v
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cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:47

!!hang l

KitSox

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a, c, e, i, l, t, v
-act--i-e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang f

KitSox

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a, c, e, f, i, l, t, v
fact--i-e

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!hang factorise

KitSox

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Correct! The word is factorise.

tchrist

01:44

@MattЭллен Apart from being thrice too long, here is what I should have written for your blog regarding the English subjunctive.

Cerberus

@tchrist The beginning is well written. Lawler was on his traditional crusade against tradition again.

tchrist

It could be tightened by half.

Cerberus

It is relevant to note that French aimions is identical to the imparfait, so Lawler would indeed say French has no present subjunctive.

If he were consistent.

tchrist

Heh.

Cerberus

Not was.

tchrist

01:52

He hasn’t been.

Cerberus

Naturellement.

Reading on...

tchrist

Of course, many verbs are not thus crippled in French. The strong ones usually retain a special subjunctive form. Just the common inflections do not.

Cerberus

Of course.

> English has never had a tense shift in the subjunctive in quite the same way as Latin and its descendants do.

Are you sure? Old English? Middle English?

tchrist

I looked.

It depends. It actually varied between writers a bit.

But for the most part, Visser’s examples don’t back-shift.

Cerberus

Even in Very Old English?

OK then.

> However, we in English do use, and a unique and isolated case, the special form were for hypotheticals.

Not sure I like this sentence...

tchrist

01:59

Take a look for yourself, but there aren’t many.

I’ve fixed that typo already.

> However, we in English do use — as a unique and isolated case — the special form were for hypotheticals.

Cerberus

Ah OK, mine eye sought an as.

tchrist

As you shall shortly see, I even snuck in an intentionally non-NPI use of ever in English, which John claims no longer exists.

@Cerberus I thought you used an r in that word? :)

The thing you do find is that during the Enlightenment, people started to imitate Continental forms in ways that weren’t present in Old English.

Then again, French actually used its past subjunctive back then.

Cerberus

@tchrist I did notice it!

I was even pondering it.

The greatest mollusc I have ever seen is the same use, am I right?

tchrist

No. That one is NPI.

Cerberus

Abbreviations. I hates them.

tchrist

02:07

It means jamais not toujours.

Um.

Negative Polarity Item.

Cerberus

@tchrist Tsk.

The greatest mollusc I have ever seen "toujours" → modern.

tchrist

I love watching delayed light-bulbs come suddenly aglow.

Cerberus

I have ever dreaded molluscs "toujours" → archaic.

Both are the same, except for the superlative + that.

tchrist

The first one is not toujours, but jamais. Translate into French and you will see. I believe you’ll even need a pleonastic ne.

Cerberus

No, no.

tchrist

02:10

No?

Cerberus

Yes, the French would use jamais there.

tchrist

Exactly.

Cerberus

But still, it is not like no man have I ever seen.

It's a different use.

tchrist

Those are all the never kind of ever, not the always kind.

Cerberus

I would say it's the always kind.

tchrist

02:11

Never and always being such clear antonyms that some people can’t seem to tell them apart. :)

Cerberus

That is, you can use ever with negations and questions in unmarked modern prose, but not in a regular statement, right?

tchrist

If it were the always kind, it would need a toujours/siempre not a jamais/jamás translation. And it doesn’t.

> Have you ever seen such a thing?

That’s NPI.

> It’s the same as we’ve ever had it.

Is not.

Cerberus

So apparently the [superlative] that is followed by a clause of the same kind as negations and questions, even though it is neither.

It is neither question nor negation.

But ever is still standard.

That was all I wanted to say.

tchrist

It is an odd Gallicism, this is true.

Cerberus

The same applies to words that introduce a certain kind of inversion, like only.

tchrist

02:15

‘Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him. . . .’

That’s the always kind.

Cerberus

> The only man I have ever loved... → standard.

> Only him have I ever loved... → perhaps a tad old fashioned?

tchrist

Is it Le seul homme que je n’ai jamais aimé then?

Cerberus

Uhh.

Yes, I would say so.

But probably not the past passé composé.

tchrist

Oh right.

Cerberus

I don't know why, but it sounds wrong.

tchrist

02:16

I presume he’s still alive. :)

I know. Is it supposed to not have the ne?

Cerberus

Actually, I don't know how they would say that I had ever loved.

Oh, that.

tchrist

That one is avais.

Cerberus

I think modern French has no ne, but older French does.

@tchrist Yes, and somehow my ear did like that.

Example:

tchrist

Interesting.

Cerberus

> il est plus grand que je ne (le?) suis → older.

Actually, that doesn't work in modern French.

tchrist

02:18

> Il est le seul homme que j'ai jamais aimé.
Il était le seul homme que je n'avais jamais aimé.

Cerberus

> Il m'a traité plus mal que je n'ai traité sa mère. → older.

> Il m'a traité plus mal que je'ai traité sa mère. → modern.

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

@tchrist Why avais again?

tchrist

I don’t know.

Cerberus

I mean, why add both the past perfect and ne?

tchrist

02:20

> He is the only man I have ever loved.
He was the only man I had ever loved.

I guess you could mix était with ai.

Depending on what you’re trying to say.

Cerberus

Sounds better unmixed.

@tchrist Rarely is that ever needed to express one's intention.

tchrist

I get the idea that the Spanish would be quicker to use fue than the French fut in that first situation.

I think spoken French would use a compound tense for the same notion.

To drive home that he is dead.

However, most of my French today is read not heard, so I’m no use at this game.

Would you really use erat in Latin?

Or fuit?

Cerberus

Ehh probably erat.

tchrist

> Eram quod es; eris quod sum

Cerberus

Sounds good.

tchrist

02:28

In languages with both kinds of past, you have to make a distinction between them sometimes. There was something I was going to tell you is not the same as There was a bomb blast yesterday.

The second one needs the other kind.

Cerberus

The imperfect would be used to describe things that are more static, that don't have a sudden change.

Of course a sudden change is difficult with fuit.

tchrist

Kinda done with all its changin’.

Cerberus

I see.

tchrist

Spanish is happy with hay for “there is/are” (from Old Spanish “it has there”) in the present and both an imperfect había for the first case and a strong preterite hubo for the second case.

Since the blast is done.

Cerberus

Blast?

tchrist

02:32

But I still haven’t gotten around to telling you something. :)

Cerberus

Oh?

tchrist

“There was a bomb blast yesterday.”

Cerberus

Is it kitten related?

Oh.

I am not good at using tenses in the Romance languages, I must confess.

In Germanic, I use my intuition.

tchrist

Ayer había algo que te tenía que decir. Ya me lo acuerdo: que hubo una gran explosión en la plaza.

See the difference?

Cerberus

Yes, that would probably be the same in Latin.

But it is difficult to come up with a dynamic situation in the normal perfect with esse in Latin.

tchrist

02:36

They do use the present perfect rather than the preterite at times, so “there has/have been”.

Ha habido demasiado de eso en estos días.

Cerberus

Yes, something like that also happens in French, I think.

tchrist

It has a more progressive sense.

> There’s been too much of that these days.

Um.

Cerberus

At least it's different from Dutch, and different again from English.

tchrist

Il y a eu?

Cerberus

Dutch and English teachers use much the same reasoning to explain different patterns of the use of the present perfect in their respective languages.

tchrist

02:39

Dunno.

Cerberus

@tchrist It is possible...but I never know when they will use it.

tchrist

Heh.

Cerberus

It kind of sounds "right" when I read it, but my intuition goes no farther for French.

tchrist

I understand.

Cerberus

I can only intuitively use the present perfect in Dutch and English.

And there is variation within either language.

This (has) just happened.

In Dutch, you can often use either, and in some of those situations, the other marks a different region, but often there is no difference at all.

> Ik heb hem gezien in de stad vanmiddag.

> Ik zag hem in de stad vanmiddag.

Both possible.

I suppose zag is a bit more probable when you're in the middle of a story about what happened that afternoon.

Van-mid-dag = of-mid-day = this afternoon.

By the way, it is interesting how Dutch can still use van in addition to the genitive to mark time!

Vanmiddag = 's middags!

's = des

tchrist

02:49

The UK is more apt to say that someone “has just called”, the US or Canada more like to just say that that same someone “just called”, without the present perfect.

This is exactly the same trans-Atlantic alternation seen in Spain (present perfect) vs Mexico (simple past) for the pasado próximo.

And I have no idea why, in either case.

However, in questions with inversion, it’s more often Have you called your mother yet? than it is Did you call your mother yet? Both are heard, but the first is more common.

And may be a bit different in nuance.

None of this is invariant. I’m just talking propensities. Both forms occur on both sides of the Atlantic.

They fucked with our clocks again this morning.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes, exactly.

tchrist

@Cerberus I actually read that for the wrong verb because I was reading backwards.

Cerberus

@tchrist Really? That is interesting. Could there be a connection? How recent is either phenomenon?

tchrist

I don’t know.

Cerberus

@tchrist The latter sounds a bit more like...what younger people would say?

tchrist

02:57

I am thinking the only connection is a common cause, whatever that may be.

@Cerberus Quite right.

The first is what someone might say with a tone of disapproval or concern.

Cerberus

There is a tendency in Dutch to use the past perfect instead of the present one. It's ugly.

tchrist

Well.

You get that in story telling.

Cerberus

No, no.

tchrist

I had seen him down by the pool around 5. Probably I was the last man to see him alive.

And it’s like 8 o’clock or something.

Cerberus

> *So we had gone to this film last Sunday, The Phoenix, have you seen it? It was really good.

tchrist

02:59

Ick.

Cerberus

I know.

It also sounds icky in Dutch.

tchrist

Teen talk?

Cerberus

There is no context to warrant it.

Yes, a bit teen talk, but also more general, I'm afraid. Fairly recent, I think.

A friend of mine does it.

tchrist

I have an uptalking colleague I’ve only heard on the phone. I cannot put out of my mind that he’s some teenage surfer dude because of the rising terminal?

That is, everything sounds like a question?

BTW, this has nothing to do with "the meaning of to be". To be has no meaning, since it's just part of the machinery of grammar. — John Lawler 40 mins ago

There’s something self-contradictory about that statement, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Hm, the German makes more sense than the Dutch:

> Ich versuche nur, um den Kobold töricht Konsistenz in Schach zu halten.

> I’m just trying to keep the hobgoblin of foolish consistency at bay.

Google translate does something with the Dutch that well, I dunno. I don’t know Dutch.

But they don’t know hobgoblins, apparently.

Kobold works.

I think that we get goblin from the French, actually.

But the whole hob- thing, well.

That one I think is ours alone.

Hm, foolish INconsistency.

> Ich versuche nur, um die Kobolde der törichten Inkonsistenz in Schach zu halten.

I sometimes think that Germans paid by the comma must be.

Cerberus

03:33

> 29.727

Hmm what were you saying?

@tchrist The issue is that they use a somewhat arbitrary sense of "meaning", one that needs to be defined outside linguistics.

Less meaning I am willing to accept as reasonable. But not no meaning.

tchrist

@Cerberus How would you translate the Emerson riff above into Dutch?

@Cerberus Agreed.

Cerberus

@tchrist Where is the "of" in the German?

tchrist

I was thinking it might be hiding in the der. :)

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes, gobelin, right?

@tchrist Better.

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

03:37

@tchrist Ik probeer slechts de kobold der dwaze consistentie op een afstand te houden.

But kobold doesn't work.

It's not an expression in Dutch.

tchrist

> a. Fr. gobelin (obs., recorded only from the 16th c.; but in the 12th c. Ordericus Vitalis mentions Gobelinus as the popular name of a spirit which haunted the neighbourhood of Évreux). Perh. f. med.L. cobalus, covalus, a. Gr. κόβᾱλος a rogue, knave, κόβᾱλοι wicked sprites invoked by rogues.

More Kobolds.

Cerberus

You'd need a different, equivalent expression in Dutch.

Maybe spook.

tchrist

The problem is that I’m quoting Emerson, and if you change the word, the connection is gone. I guess translation really is impossible.

Cerberus

You can say het spook der oorlog or something, "the ghost of war", i.e. the horrible (but uncertain?) threat of war.

@tchrist It is...but that first one didn't have der.

tchrist

German is not my best language.

Nor second- or third-best either. :)

> A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Cerberus

03:40

You can houden het spook van oorlog in toom ("in bridle" <> tame).

tchrist

It was the “at bay” thing that I was wondering what you would do with.

Cerberus

Op een afstand is what I chose, "at a distance".

tchrist

Like keeping menacing dogs at bay.

Yes.

I have no idea where the phrase comes from. It is an odd use of bay.

Cerberus

So in toom = in bridle, both perfect enough, I would say.

Yeah I always read that as in there needs to be an open space, like a bay.

A bay in unquestionably a space, right?

tchrist

Yes, a bay window has a space.

Cerberus

03:43

But it could be keeping some animal in its bay?

As in a cargo bay.

tchrist

> a. Fr. baie, OFr. baée (L. type badāta), f. bayer, OFr. baer, béer to gape, stand open = Pr. and Ital. badare, as to which see Diez.

Cerberus

Exactly.

Could it be related to patent?

tchrist

> The meaning of the Fr. word (which the Eng. follows) may have been modified by confusion with baee, bee, on L. type *badāta an opening (see bay sb.[entry#3]). The two have certainly been associated in English; see esp. 2-4, where the senses of recess and projection appear. Derivation from badare, to be open (see bay sb.[entry#3]) is disproved by Ital. baja, unless this is borrowed from some other Romanic language, as Sp. or Fr.

Cerberus

Patet = "it is open, it is manifest".

tchrist

I know no Latin *badāta for opening.

Cerberus

03:44

No...

Must be late or Vulgar.

Badiner? Badinage?

tchrist

That’s something else.

Cerberus

No!

> Badeen: [a. F. badin, -ine, derivative of Pr. bad-ar:—late L. badāre to gape. Badin was in earlier usage ‘silly,’ as if ‘gaping.’ Cf. badinage n.]

tchrist

> a. Fr. baie:-late L. baia, in Isidore, c 640. (Isidore illustrates his derivation of portus from portare by the analogy of baia from bajulare. He does not consider baia a modern word; but says it made its genitive in -as, like familia. It may thus be an old word in popular Latin.)

Hm.

Mater baias, eh? :)

Cerberus

Hmm what is your first entry for? And your second?

tchrist

These are for bay.

Well, for both of them.

Cerberus

03:47

Two different bays?

tchrist

One the inlet, the other the space, and the possible confusion between them.

Yes.

Cerberus

Why are those different lemmata?

tchrist

Unclear.

Cerberus

Both from French baie?

tchrist

> bay /beɪ/, sb.[entry#2] Also 5-7 baye.

Etymology: a. Fr. baie:-late L. baia, in Isidore, c 640. (Isidore illustrates his derivation of portus from portare by the analogy of baia from bajulare. He does not consider baia a modern word; but says it made its genitive in -as, like familia. It may thus be an old word in popular Latin.) The meaning of the Fr. word (which the Eng. follows) may have been modified by confusion with baee, bee, on L. type *badāta an opening (see bay sb.[entry#3]). The two have certainly been associated in English; see esp. 2-4, where the senses of recess and project…

Cerberus

03:48

Are there two French baies?

Ahh, so yes.

tchrist

> bay /beɪ/, sb.[entry#3] Forms: 6 baie, 6-7 baye, 4- bay.

Etymology: a. Fr. baie, OFr. baée (L. type badāta), f. bayer, OFr. baer, béer to gape, stand open = Pr. and Ital. badare, as to which see Diez. See prec.

1 An opening in a wall; esp. the space between two columns.
2 ‘The division of a barn or other building, generally from fifteen to twenty feet in breadth,’ Gwilt. (See the dialect Glossaries.) Applied to a house, it appears to be the space lying under one gable, or included between two party-walls.

Cerberus

So there may be two French baies, says the OED, unless Italian baja is from Spanish or French.

tchrist

Bet you can’t guess which bay get the first slot.

Cerberus

I read that as, the OED isn't sure at all.

tchrist

Yeah.

Cerberus

03:50

The second one?

tchrist

Bay leaves and such.

No.

Cerberus

Let's see what the Etymologiebank says.

Oh, that one.

Not the horse colour?

tchrist

> bay /beɪ/, sb.[entry#1] Also 4-7 baye, baie.

Etymology: a. OFr. baie (= Pr. baga):-L. bāca berry. In OE. begbeam occurs in the OE. Gospels, and in a glossary of the 11th c. (Wülcker /450) as a rendering of mōrārius; the glossarist adds that mōra is a name for ‘berries’ generally, whence beg appears to be = berry. In the 11th c. it might perhaps already be adopted from Fr.; but the Corpus Glossary of the 8th c. (Wülcker /8) has also ‘baccinia (= vaccinia) beger’ which suggests that this (elsewhere begir) might be an archaic plural of an original -is, -os stem, and that beg was a native w…

What, yet another French baie? :(

Cerberus

Ugh.

> M. Philippa e.a. (2003-2009) Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands

baai 1 zn. ‘inham van de zee’
Mnl. baeye [15e eeuw; Stall. I, 108]; vnnl. baeye [1599; Kil.].
Herkomst onzeker. Misschien ontleend aan Oudfrans baee ‘opening’ [1119], baie ‘baai’ [1364] (Nieuwfrans baie), afgeleid van het werkwoord baer, beer ‘geopend zijn, gapen’ (Nieuwfrans bayer). Dit lijkt bevestigd te worden door Catalaans badia bij het werkwoord badar ‘openen’. Ook is de herkomst van het Romaanse woord (waarnaast ook Spaans, Portugees bahia ‘baai’) onduidelijk. Er wordt wel gedacht aan Baskische oorsprong, ter…

Summary: uncertain. And the Romance word is also uncertain.

tchrist

Any connection between bahía and baja would remain to be proven.

Cerberus

03:52

Yeah.

tchrist

Do you have only one entry then, not two?

Cerberus

Note that Philippa is aware of the reasoning of the OED.

tchrist

I see.

Catalan is a reasonable transit route to OF, that is, to a langue d’oïl from a langue d’oc.

Cerberus

@tchrist We don't have it in modern Dutch, at least.

> baaitabak, dat met weglating van het tweede deel weder baai werd. Friesche baai, heerenbaai. Benaming van de beste soort Marylandtabak, misschien omdat zij uitgevoerd werd uit de baai, waaraan Maryland ligt (N. Wdb. II, 801).

Bay tobacco, possibly from the bay of Maryland.

tchrist

If in fact one needs a trade route for the word.

Oh crap.

I was wrong.

Cerberus

03:55

No idea!

Oh?

tchrist

It’s actually the 4th bay!

> bay /beɪ/, sb.[entry#4] Also 4 baie, 5 baye.

Etymology: Two different words seem to be here inextricably confused. Originally, the phrase to hold at bay seems ad. OFr. tenir a bay (Godefroy) = Ital. tenere a bada, where bay, bada, means the state of suspense, expectation, or unfulfilled desire, indicated by the open mouth (late L. badare to open the mouth); but to stand at bay, be brought to bay, correspond to mod.Fr. être aux abois, meaning to be at close quarters with the barking dogs, and bay is here aphetically formed from abay, (def#a). OFr. abai barking. See bay v.[entry#1] In the …

> I Barking or baying.

1 The deep prolonged barking of a dog when pursuing or attacking.

1530 Palsgr. 196/2 - Bay of houndes, aboyement de chiens.
1588 Shaks. Tit. A. ii. ii. 3 - Vncouple heere, and let vs make a bay, And wake the Emperour.
1784 Cowper Task i. 230 - The bay of curs.
1810 Scott Lady of L. i. i, - The deep-mouthed bloodhounds’ heavy bay.
1849 C. Brontë Shirley xv. 230 - Formidable-looking dogs..all bristle and bay.

2 esp. The chorus of barking raised by hounds in immediate conflict with a hunted animal; hence, the final encounter between hounds and the prey they have chased.

There are EIGHT different nouns for bay.

> bay /beɪ/, sb.[entry#6] Also 7 (in comb.) be-.

Etymology: short for bay-antler, earlier be- or bes-antlier, f. OFr. bes twice, second, secondary + antler.

The second branch of a stag’s horn, formerly also called the sur-antlier, being next above the ‘antler’ proper, or (as it is now called) brow-antler.

> bay /ˈbeɪ/, sb.[entry#7] Obs. exc. Hist. Also 7 baye.

Etymology: a. Fr. baie, or its Dutch repr. baai, f. Fr. bai, baie, the colour bay: see baize.

1 Baize; originally a fabric of a finer lighter texture than now, the manufacture of which was introduced into England in the 16th c. by fugitives from France and the Netherlands. Usually in the pl., whence the modern corruption baize, q.v.

> bay /beɪ/, a.[entry#1] (and sb.[entry#1]) Also 5-6 baye, 6-7 baie.

Etymology: a. Fr. bai bay-coloured:-L. badius, mentioned by Varro in a list of colours appropriate to horses.

1 A reddish brown colour; a generally used of horses, and taken to include various shades. Hence qualified as bright-bay, light-bay, blood-bay, golden-bay.

It sure look forever to get to the horsey one.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh that's funny! Convergent etymology.

tchrist

The first verb is of a baying dog.

And the second, well, is unclear.

Cerberus

Yeah I got that.

> VMNW baai BAYE znw.v. bes
MNW baai BAYE (II) znw(o.) Zeezout, ruw zout. Kil. baeye-sout, sal aequoreus, marinus, thans nog baaizout geheeten.
WNT baai BAAI (I) znw.(v.,m.) Eigenlijk. Benaming van zeker grof, op molton gelijkend flanel (zie KUYPER, Technol. 2, 460 ).
WNT baai BAAI (II) znw.(v.)
WNT baai BAAI (III) znw.(v.,m.) Rijnsche baai, Rinsche wijn, Rijnwijn; voorheen zeer gebruikelijk en thans verouderd.
WNT baai BAAI (IV) znw.(m.)

tchrist

> bay /beɪ/, v.[entry#2]

Etymology: A later deriv. of the sb. in the expression ‘at bay,’ due to the ambiguity with which that was said both of the pursued and of the pursuing animal: see bay sb.[entry#4]

1 intr. To turn to bay, stand at bay.

1649 G. Daniel Trinarch., Rich II, civ, - They knew Hee Bay’d to their Destruction.
1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1862) I. ii. v. 325 - When a stag turns his head against the hounds, he is said to bay.

2 trans. To stand at bay against. rare.

1848 G. Ruxton in Blackw. Mag. LXIII. 719 - Baying his enemies like the hunted deer.

Cerberus

04:01

We have only six entries, two of which not modern.

And most of the modern ones archaic.

tchrist

Interesting that it meant both things.

> bay, v.[entry#3] Obs. rare-1.

Etymology: a. OFr. baye-r, bée-r to gape, seek with open mouth:-late L. badāre to gape, be open.

To seek with open mouth, as the young of animals for the dugs.

1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong., - Bayer á la mamelle, to seeke or baye for the dugge.

Digging now. :)

Cerberus

Is the colour related to beige?

tchrist

God, it keeps going!

Cerberus

If French had/has baize...

tchrist

I wonder.

Right.

And there are swaps of s/z/g/j

> bay /beɪ/, v.[entry#4]

Etymology: Immediately connected with bay sb.[entry#5], but whether as its source or derivative does not appear; the latter is more likely. Supposing the vb. to be the source, it has been conjecturally derived from ONor. bægjan ‘to push back, hinder’; it might also be referred to ‘hold at bay’ in some of its uses (see bay sb.[entry#4]): or even to bay sb.[entry#2] or [entry#3] in some of their applications.

trans. To obstruct, dam (water): often with up, back.

1598 Sylvester Du Bartas i. ii. (1641) 18/2 - He, whose pow’rfull hand Bay’d-up the Red-Sea with a doubl…

The word that keeps on giving and giving and giving.

> bay, v.[entry#6]

Etymology: f. bay sb.[entry#2]

intr. To spread out in a bay-like form.

1906 A. Hope Sophy of Kravonia viii, - The town was no more than one long street, which bayed out at the farther end into a market-place.

Only 15 entries total.

For bay.

No joy for beige, the lazy sots:

> beige /beɪʒ/, sb. and a. Also formerly bège.

Etymology: a. Fr. beige adj.

A sb. 1 A fine woollen fabric used as a dress-material, originally left in its natural colour but later dyed in various colours. Also beige cloth.

They go one back and quit.

That doesn’t help.

Going to bed.

Good night.

Cerberus

04:08

WNT/EWN says beige is from bombax, the silk caterpillar, what do you call those?

@tchrist Night!

Silkworm.

Hey, is there a better English etymological dictionary than the OED? As it is, I usually take whatever related Dutch word I can find in the OED and search for the ultimate etymology in the Dutch dinctionaries.

There always is a related word, luckily; if not Dutch, then German or Latin or Greek.

Jasper Loy

09:53

I find all etymologies boring.

Cerberus

10:05

Thanks for telling us!!

Cerberus

10:53

> 22.509

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