Re: CHAT: Strawberry (was Re: Lexical Relatedness Morphology (wa Re: [Conlangs-Conf] Conference Overview))

At 18:49 08/05/2006, you wrote:
>David Peterson wrote:
>  I think it'd be hilarious if the
> > first guy to grow them was named Harold Straw, and he sought
> > to brand his berries...
> >
>As is the case with Messrs. Boysen and Logan, IIRC.
>
>Curiously, strawberries are "earth berries" in Germ. and Du-- Erdbeere and
>aardbei, resp.  Raspberry: Germ. Himbeere (Du. framboos, loan).
>
>Cranberry is said to be < "crane berry"; and gooseberry-- I can't imagine
>cranes or geese eating them-- maybe as a purgative? When I was a kid,
>gooseberry bushes were common; rather a weed I suspect. Grandmother once
>made us a g. pie...no one liked it :-(( Another bit of our British ~pioneer
>heritage down the drain.
I have a feeling that gooslegogs might once have been used to make a sauce
to serve with roast goose. But your grandmother must have got something
badly wrong if nobody liked her gooseberry pie.

It is interesting that names of berries seem particularly prone to
containing these fossilised morphemes - compounds where one root has been
either lost from the general lexicon, or phonetically altered so that it's
no longer recognisable as its normal form. Take for instance, wimberries -
which are not only delicious, but revel in a wonderful profusion of variant
dialectal names.

Pete