The origins of ERCOMAI

porson porson at ix.netcom.com
Fri Jun 7 13:39:29 EDT 2002


Dale wrote:

> Anglo-Saxon, has "go, went, 
>gone", with the "go/gone" principal parts coming from the Germanic heritage 
>(viz., German "gehen") and the "went" coming from the Romance heritage 
>(viz., Latin "venire, vedire"; French "venir")

Anglo-Saxon in fact had at least three common words for what we express 
as "go":

1.) gan;

2.) wendan;

3.) lithan (can't e mail the rune "thorn" so th).

I think our beer drinking Old English linguistic ancestors probably in 
this instance did not have to francogallify what appears to be a good 
Anglo-Saxon usage. While there are other direct and indirect instances of 
this Romance influence (M.E. aks > ask from O.E. acsian [the older form 
still preserved in both dialect and mispronunciation], the metasthesis 
apparently for reasons of euphony), went is probably not such an example.

So, when the heroes varied the honeyed delights of the meodsehtla with 
the fermented juice of the grape mis en bouteille au chateau, in all 
likelihood they went from the keg to the oak cask in the spirit of hie 
wendedon rather than that of venerunt or ils sont venu.

By the way, I've been gathering literary references to beer and wine in a 
variety of languages, and despite my fondness for the fermented juice of 
the grape, I am being led to the opinion that beer drinkers are a 
happier, more balanced lot than their wine counterparts. 

Porson



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