Strawberry Etymology (was: Lexical Relatedness Morphology)

Emaelivpeith David J. Peterson 'sa <dedalvs@...>:
> This is what I like about LRM.  Let's take "strawberry", for example.
> When I was creating my handout, I included "strawberry" in my
> examples along with "boysenberry", etc., as a word composed of
> "berry" plus a meaningless (or unpredictable) prefix.  My girlfriend
> then pointed out to me that the "straw" in strawberry comes from
> how strawberries are grown.  I was flabbergasted.  And furthermore,
> the word changed for me forever that day.  Now in my head I
> have a story for "*straw*berry", whereas before, I had none.
Wikipedia calls that particular etymology (of which there are several)
a "folk etymology" --

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry#Etymology
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strawberry#Changed_image_in_the_etymology_section

OED doesn't know anything about protecting strawberries with straw:

"[OE. stréaw-, stréow, stréa-, stréuberi{asg}e, f. stréaw STRAW n.1 +
beri{asg}e BERRY n.

"No corresponding word is found in any other Teut. lang. The reason
for the name has been variously conjectured. One explanation refers
the first element to STRAW n.1 2, a particle of straw or chaff, a
mote, describing the appearance of the achenes scattered over the
surface of the strawberry; another view is that it designates the
runners (cf. STRAW n.1 3).

"The view of Kluge, that OE. stréaw- in streawberi{asg}e is cogn. w.
L. fr{amac}gum strawberry, is not phonologically satisfactory, and is
also open to objection on other grounds.]"

However, even if *none* of these explanations are accurate, I may
indeed view strawberries differently now that I have competing
etymologies floating around in my head. :P


--
AA
http://conlang.arthaey.com

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