Talk:wiseacre
Latest comment: 4 months ago by Theknightwho in topic Acre?
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Rfv-sense: A learned or wise man. [from before 1600] There's a quote from Leland, which is claimed to be "some weird Freemasonry shit", but I couldn't find it La más guay (talk) 09:45, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
- I have replaced the Leland quote (which I could not find) by a different translation by Henry Dana Ward, that being the earliest translation I could find. I also added two other supporting quotes, so this is now cited. Kiwima (talk) 19:15, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 20:01, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
Acre?
[edit]How was Middle Dutch segger “sayer” corrupted into acre, which is nonrelated in semantics and etymology, in this word? I would expect *wisesayer. Incidentally, how was the ⟨gg⟩ in the Dutch form pronounced? [jː]? Wiktionairy (talk) 21:31, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Wiktionairy The 〈ss〉 from 'wijssegger' turned into the /z/ of wiseacre. If it would be a calque, you'd expect *wisesayer, but the word was borrowed as a whole. ⟨gg⟩ was pronounced [ɣː] Exarchus (talk) 10:27, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, this looks very much like a phonetic borrowing that got reinterpreted as wise + acre. The expected phonetic borrowing would be wise + egger, so I'm not sure what caused the shift to /eɪ/. Theknightwho (talk) 20:11, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theknightwho Earliest known use is 1595 (so technically from Modern Dutch?), I guess it underwent the Great Vowel Shift from /ɛː/ to /eɪ/. Although the vowel is short in Dutch. Exarchus (talk) 08:27, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Exarchus That post-dates the usual dates of the GVS in English, but it wouldn't surprise me if it either pre-dates 1595 by a significant margin, or it was borrowed via a dialect that had retained /ɛː/ at that time. There are still some dialects with pre-GVS vowels in some very common words, and "acre" is a good candidate for being a hold-out since it would have been very common back then. Theknightwho (talk) 14:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theknightwho I was just looking at the Wikipedia chart which gives the vowel of 'name' as /ɛː/ in 1600 (so an intermediate step). Exarchus (talk) 15:14, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Exarchus Thanks! Theknightwho (talk) 15:31, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theknightwho I was just looking at the Wikipedia chart which gives the vowel of 'name' as /ɛː/ in 1600 (so an intermediate step). Exarchus (talk) 15:14, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Exarchus That post-dates the usual dates of the GVS in English, but it wouldn't surprise me if it either pre-dates 1595 by a significant margin, or it was borrowed via a dialect that had retained /ɛː/ at that time. There are still some dialects with pre-GVS vowels in some very common words, and "acre" is a good candidate for being a hold-out since it would have been very common back then. Theknightwho (talk) 14:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theknightwho Earliest known use is 1595 (so technically from Modern Dutch?), I guess it underwent the Great Vowel Shift from /ɛː/ to /eɪ/. Although the vowel is short in Dutch. Exarchus (talk) 08:27, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, this looks very much like a phonetic borrowing that got reinterpreted as wise + acre. The expected phonetic borrowing would be wise + egger, so I'm not sure what caused the shift to /eɪ/. Theknightwho (talk) 20:11, 29 June 2024 (UTC)