That sleepy “sl”
I was talking to a friend the other day and the word “scurry” came up, as in “we’ve got to scurry out of here.” I joked that a better word would be “skedaddle,” and maybe even “scoot” or “scram.”
And then I realized that all these words start with the same phoneme, the “sk”sound. That led to thinking of others in the same category: scat, scramble, scamper, skitter, scutter.
It’s probably no coincidence; the “sk” sound has a quick and percussive quality. Sometimes the sound of a word fits its meaning and sometimes it doesn’t, but these certainly seem to.
And then there’s “sl,” very different from “sk.” Its sound is lazy, loose, slow, and it engenders sleepy, slurred, sluggish, slothful, sleepy, and slumber.
And now I must skedaddle, or be accused of slacking off!
Yah, sure, ya betcha!
The sk- phonemes are probably of Germanic or even Norse origin.
Don’t forget smuck and smoo!
Both of Yiddish origin.
Slap-dash blog posts are slick enough to slip past the slam of the trolls. But as David slung his sling and slew the giant, you sure opened a sluice of slippery sibilance sure to slay the subject.
Bob from Virginia: the Yiddish phoneme at the beginning of those words is “sh” or “sch.” Therefore we have “schmuck,” for example (origins of the word: “jewel,” in German), not “smuck” (you may be letting the jams interefere).
The “sch” sound in Yiddish is a vast source of wonderfulness, often used to designate the beginning of a word describing either a poor unfortunate or a despicable character. And, much as the Eskimo (read: Inuit) were thought to have a large number of words for snow (although it’s unclear that they actually did), Yiddish has a huge number of terms for knave or fool.
William Faulkner said that one reason he named the Snopes family what he did was because only a few words in English starting with “sn” have a positive connotation.
LittleRed1: Snickers bar?
slazy skiberals
scitzy slemocrats
slug scovernment
slope and skrange
slim slender skinny. Johnny Carson said Jack Benny told him you could never go wrong with banana or anything starting with z.
Hey, don’t slam that door!
And slinking is sneaky.
Well theres Sloopy in that song that half the population still thinks was Snoopy.
Then there’s the skink.
Dang, forgot to close the blockquote tag again.
Of course there’s also the scutie.
Alas.
Then there’s st-; many words starting with that phoneme indicate cessation or lack of movement. Stick, stuck, stand, stop, station, stay…
I like words that seem to effortlessly roll off the tounge. One of my favorites is Ticonderoga. Another is Tittabawassee, since i saw it on a sign last week in Michigan and became infatuated with it. 🙂
Stemocrats are stuck on stupid.
Sliberals are slow and slazy.
Sneaky snickering snowjobbers are snakes
Smack a smattering of smascists.
If I am not mistaken, LS is right – the “sk” words are almost all of Scandinavian origin. Throw in “skirt” and even “skirling” (the sound of a bagpipe). Our Scottish cousins probably wouldn’t like the notion that that last is Norse, though….
Then, we also have words and combinations of word to be used instead of swearing ….. gosh darn, gol dang, heck, shucks, to name a few.
Surelin, you are not mistaken. The sk- is northern, Scandinavian, while sh- is southern in English. So skirt and shirt were originally the same garment, the fashions changing in the two regions, so we now different words, different garments. Similarly, dike and ditch were the same dual fortification, but the word in the north became associated with the upper part, in the south with the lower. Shriek/screech, kirk/church, skiff/ship – they are called “doublets” in etymology.
Neo has wandered into a debate that ebbs and flows among historical linguists and cognitive scientists. There is also “fl-” found in flow, fly, flee, flutter, flip, flame etc in English, but also found in languages (supposedly) unrelated, yet having the same quick movement associations. Merritt Ruhlen, tracing these many examples back, claims that the fl- root was part of our original language. Most other historical linguists dismiss this with great irritation. I happen to think he’s got some very solid arguments, myself, and the more traditional linguists have essentially circular ones.
I think LS is on the right track.
It’s not that the sound matches the action so much as all the languages that came up with these words probably have a common root language which had a word along the same lines that started with that sound.
If anyone wants to look for more info on the net, keep in mind that not all the languages that use this character set have similar sounds for the respective letters. SL or SK might not line up to the same sounds… in even other live languages today. But that’s another story.
But from what I know, I’d bet the sk sound has to do with “silent” and “stealth” more than retreat.