tuulikki:frothlad:allthingslinguistic:There’s a theory that early Europeans started saying “brown on
tuulikki:frothlad:allthingslinguistic:There’s a theory that early Europeans started saying “brown one” or “honey-eater” instead of “bear” to avoid summoning them, and similarly my friend has started calling Alexa “the faceless woman” because saying her true name awakens her from her slumberEnglish has an avoidance register used in the presence of certain respected animals, which sounds fancy until you realize it’s spelling out w-a-l-k and t-r-e-a-t in front of the dog.Mx. Leah Velleman on twitterPeople who lived in the north (Germanics, Slavs) where the big-ass bears live didn’t say the inherited word for “bear”. People who lived in the south (Greeks, Italics) where the bears are much smaller were perfectly fine saying the inherited word for “bear”. So it goes.And don’t forget the Finns and the Baltics! They weren’t about to accidentally summon bears, either. -- source link
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