Re: CHAT: Being taken for a furriner ...

J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:

>On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 13:54:16 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Keith Gaughan wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I keep forgetting to change my list settings so that Thunderbird doesn't
>>>screw up the reply address. Replying to the list now.
>>>
>>>I think this was discussed back in the depths of the list's history. I
>>>think it's a coincidence that they have the same form, but I'm pretty
>>>sure the origin of -'s is from constructions like:
>>>
>>>    the king his army
>>>
>>>
>
>Oh, very interesting, I didn't know that this construction exists in English
>too. It's all parallel to German:
>
>dem König seine Armee
>the-DAT king(-DAT) his army
>
>I suppose this isn't considered to be correct standard English? Does it have
>an archaical flavour?
>
>
>
>>>and the like. It is, after all, a clitic. I think it generalised under
>>>some influence from the germanic genitive, but it's not actually the
>>>genitive.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>It's a long established folk etymology, which was given some grounding
>>in the 17th century by hypercorrect writers(Ben Johnson, I think, for
>>instance).
>>
>>Hawever, in fact, it comes from the Old English '-es', on Strong
>>Masculine Verbs.  It's attested throughout the Middle English period, up
>>to the present day.
>>
>>
>
>I suppose you mean "strong masculine nouns", not verbs, do you?
>
>
Yes, yes I do.  I think you'd call it a thinko.