Re: English is a crazy language

Danny Wier scripsit:

> 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.

I don't know the French name of the French horn.

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.)

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

Replies