Re: English is a crazy language

--- Jeff Jones wrote:

>>> And the French horn is called _cor anglais_ "English horn" but our
>>> English horn is a type of oboe!
>>
>> I think you have the details mixed here.  The English horn (cor anglais)
>> is indeed an alto oboe with two bends in the sound pipe (unlike the
>> ordinary oboe, which is straight); it is supposed that its name
>> was originally "cor angle'", the bent horn, and was changed in
>> French by folk etymology, which was then translated into English.
>> There is no documentary proof of this, however.
The baroque version of the English horn is bent, indeed. With some fantasy,
you can recognize a horn-like shape in it.

In Dutch, there are two words for it with exactly the same meaning:
"Engelse Hoorn" and "Althobo". My father, who was an oboist, always
called it "althobo", and I have the impression that most professional
oboists do so.

>> I don't know the French name of the French horn.
Just "cor", indeed. Not only in French, but in almost every other language.
The name "French horn" exists, so far as I know, only in English.

>> The name of the oboe is also interesting.  It is Italian in origin,
>>and came into English as usual by copying the spelling and applying
>>an English pron /owbow/; the French version was "hautbois", which
>>was at the time /o:bwe/, very like the Italian pron.  (English
>>took up "hautboy" for a while but eventually abandoned the word.)
In Dutch we say "hobo" (with stress on the last syllabe). So, don't be
surprised if a Dutch musician will tell you in bad English, that s/he
is "playing hobo" ;)

Jan



=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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