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Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quib", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in ...
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#4: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2021-03-31T04:59:23Z (over 3 years ago)
Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quid", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).- ---
- The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
- Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
- (I love how Google Translate chokes on all the quibuses of the [following book title](https://www.libreriagovi.com/ars-epistolica/epistolarum-farrago-in-partes-tres-distributa-quarum-prima-varias-materias-theologicas-continet-secu), provided here as a random, actually rather tame and continental, sample of the effect for your potential entertainment.)
- > Epistolarum D. Philippi Melanchthonis Farrago, in Partes tres distributa: Quarum Prima, varias materias Theologicas continet. Secunda, familiares Epistolas habet, quib. plures cùm domesticae, tum publicae res exponuntur. Tertia, ex diversis doctorum ac praestantium virorum Epistolis constat, quib. non solum privata, sed etiam Ecclesiastica & Politica negotia tractatur: A Ioanne Manlio passim collecta, & in comunem studiosorum atq; piorum usum nunc primum publicata.
- But the theory still smells. Few English speaking people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?
- Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quib", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).
- ---
- The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
- Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
- (I love how Google Translate chokes on all the quibuses of the [following book title](https://www.libreriagovi.com/ars-epistolica/epistolarum-farrago-in-partes-tres-distributa-quarum-prima-varias-materias-theologicas-continet-secu), provided here as a random, actually rather tame and continental, sample of the effect for your potential entertainment.)
- > Epistolarum D. Philippi Melanchthonis Farrago, in Partes tres distributa: Quarum Prima, varias materias Theologicas continet. Secunda, familiares Epistolas habet, quib. plures cùm domesticae, tum publicae res exponuntur. Tertia, ex diversis doctorum ac praestantium virorum Epistolis constat, quib. non solum privata, sed etiam Ecclesiastica & Politica negotia tractatur: A Ioanne Manlio passim collecta, & in comunem studiosorum atq; piorum usum nunc primum publicata.
- But the theory still smells. Few English speaking people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?
#3: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2021-03-30T21:17:47Z (over 3 years ago)
- Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quid", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).
- ---
- The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
- Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
But the theory still smells. Few people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?
- Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quid", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).
- ---
- The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
- Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
- (I love how Google Translate chokes on all the quibuses of the [following book title](https://www.libreriagovi.com/ars-epistolica/epistolarum-farrago-in-partes-tres-distributa-quarum-prima-varias-materias-theologicas-continet-secu), provided here as a random, actually rather tame and continental, sample of the effect for your potential entertainment.)
- > Epistolarum D. Philippi Melanchthonis Farrago, in Partes tres distributa: Quarum Prima, varias materias Theologicas continet. Secunda, familiares Epistolas habet, quib. plures cùm domesticae, tum publicae res exponuntur. Tertia, ex diversis doctorum ac praestantium virorum Epistolis constat, quib. non solum privata, sed etiam Ecclesiastica & Politica negotia tractatur: A Ioanne Manlio passim collecta, & in comunem studiosorum atq; piorum usum nunc primum publicata.
- But the theory still smells. Few English speaking people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?
#2: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2021-03-30T20:27:51Z (over 3 years ago)
- Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quid", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).
- The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
- Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
- But the theory still smells. Few people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?
- Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quid", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).
- ---
- The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
- Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
- But the theory still smells. Few people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?
#1: Initial revision
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2021-03-30T20:27:15Z (over 3 years ago)
Skeat's Etymological Dictionary offers a competing theory which I find more persuasive: "quid", in the sense of a taunt or mock, could be a phonological weakening of "quip" (or "quippy"), still in the sense of a mock ("quip" attested in this sense by 1552). English "quip" would then be from Latin "quippe", from hypothetical earlier "quidpe", both meaning "indeed". The transition from "indeed" to "a mock" is supposed to be ironical use (a bit like current day English interjectional use of "Indeed!" may often be ironic), and the origin of Latin "quippe" is found in the already familiar "quid" and ["-pe"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pe#Latin).
The theory that "quib" rather comes from "quibus" gives me a gut feeling of an 18th century invention, i.e., an impression of a theory about English/Latin contact formulated long after the fact by people still familiar with 16th century Latin at a time when Latin has long been replaced by English in contexts of legal interest. One can't really argue with a theory that a word was taken from another language just because "it occurred there often". This particular theory has been repeated so often that the more recent, more casual versions of it are starting to obscure even the little that can be said in favor of the theory, namely the typical function and spelling of "quibus" in 16th century far-from-just-legal Latin texts.
Which isn't an interrogative pronoun "Quibus?", but a *relative* pronoun written as "quib" or "quib." and pronounced as "quibus". Excessive use of contractions in a difficult to read Latin text could have perhaps attracted some mockery in its time. Relative pronouns do help to produce some convoluted complex sentences. "Quibus" has the same ending for any grammatical gender and for two otherwise distinct cases, so it can be rather unclear, in an excessively complex sentence and in a language with free word order, which noun it stands for.
But the theory still smells. Few people could read by 1540. Why would any real world mockery target the written form, and not the spoken form, of "quibus"?