Re: Borrowings

Don Blaheta <dpb@...> wrote

> I was recently talking to a Greek, and she
> was saying that the Greek for airport landing gear was /Sa'si/ or
> something similar.  I speculated that it was cognate with English
> "chassis" /'tS&.si/, which meant the undercarriage of a car, like the
> wheels and axle and such.  At which point a French friend said that was
> _really_ weird, because the French "chassis" /Sa'si/ meant the *shell*
> of the car.  Almost exactly opposite.
I wouldn't call it an opposite. The meaning has shifted from one
part of the car to another related one. The (English) chassis is
the support of the car. The (French) chassis is the shell, which
can be also seen as a supporting structure.

In my own dictionary it says that "chassis" is the frame on which
the other parts of the car are built. I don't know if your dialect
uses it for a different meaning. But I daresay this is the primitive
meaning, of which "undercarriage" might be a kind of specialization.
The French "chassis" surely includes the axle etc., though not the
wheels.


--Pablo Flores

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