Re: English oddities

On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:

> Wait a minit! 'Time' and 'tide' both exist in Old Norse ("ti'mi" and
> "ti'd"); how can English 'tide' then be the "native" counterpart of foreign
> 'time'?
I just mean that the time/tide dichotomy is not native to English;
the split happened in Old Norse.  Proto-Germanic had only "tide",
as is shown by the West Germanic evidence; the appearance of "time"
in English is a result of borrowing.

*How* the split happened in ON is beyond my competence.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant
le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,
de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"