Why does OED list "rear" separately from "rare"?
Daniel al-Autistiqui
etymological connection with the "rare" that means "uncommon", I'd
like someone please to at least tell me why the OED lists the obsolete
cooking term "rear" as a word in its own right when as far as I can
tell it is just an old spelling of "rare". By doing this they make it
look as though "rare" (in this sense) is unattested before 1655, when
it is in fact the modern form of "hrer" and thus dates back to Old
English times. The year 1655 presumably has no significance other
than being the date of the earliest attested use of the cooking term
"rare" with that particular spelling -- rather than "hrer", "hrere",
"rere", or "rear".
The OED does not normally do this kind of thing. Do the editors think
there is something particularly significant about the change from
"rear" to "rare" that distinguishes it from most other historical
changes in spelling and/or pronunciation?
daniel mcgrath
--
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Developmentally disabled;
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Mike Lyle
[...]
>
> The OED does not normally do this kind of thing. Do the editors think
> there is something particularly significant about the change from
> "rear" to "rare" that distinguishes it from most other historical
> changes in spelling and/or pronunciation?
The Dictionary makes it perfectly clear that this "rare" is a later form
of the generally obsolete "rear", and the two entries are
cross-referenced (though one has to look under "Spellings" to find the
reference from "rear" to "rare"). It is helpful to list them separately,
since few if any readers, on finding this use of "rear" apparently
missing, might think of looking for it under "rare".
So I think the separate entries are made for our convenience, not by an
oversight or for any mysterious reason.
--
Mike.
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madvlad
wrote:
Rear end is the buttocks
Dušan Vukotić
wrote:
In case of Latin retro (backwards, back, behind) it is well visible
that initial labial p has been removed; from Latin p/raetereo (to go
by, pass by; to transgress, to surpass; Serbian preterati /to surpass,
to transgress/); Serb. (protraćiti /dawdle, waste time/); hence
English retreat/return (Lat. regressus /going back, return/; retraho -
trahere /to draw back; to hold back, withdraw/).
On the other side is Latin prorogo -are (to prolong; to defer, put
off; Serbian prorediti /rarefy; Serb. redak rare/; Lat. raritas /
thinness, fewness, rarity/, where the initial p has also been removed
to become English rarity in final stage :-)
The word "rear" is a syncopated "retro"; i.e. it is related to English
turn; Serbian teranje (drive, turn; cf. Serb. pre-turiti /overturn/;
pre-turanje turning over; Serb. tur /buttocks/; from po-turiti,
turiti /put on, to place/; za-turiti /leave behind/).
When the word "rare" is in question we have to deal with "row" (Lat.
ordo; Serb. red; from Bel-Hor-Gon basis; Serbian poredak [arrangement/
organization]; Lat. ordinatio) and with prefix "pro-", which demands
long and precise explanation of its etymology (from Bel-Hor-Gon basis;
bel(h)regne; Lat. bello -are /wage war/; Serb. borenje /fighting/).
[See also: English prearrange - Serbian prirediti (prearrange); Eng.
prerogative - Serb. prirođeno (a hereditary right/trait; Lat.
praerogativus and Lat. rurigena /born in the country, rustic/)].
As for "rare" (lightly cooked; AS hrér) it is difficult to be sure and
see exactly how this word is wombed. Maybe it is related to gridiron
(grid-iron?; Serb. greda /beam, long thick piece of wood or metal or
concrete, used in construction; girder/); or grill/hrill => hrir; l to
r rhotacism? It is interesting to mention that Old France graille
(grill) sounds almost the same as Serbian grejalica (heater). In this
case, Latin craticula could hardly be taken as a precursor of grill,
because Latin cratis (wickerwork) seems to have a counterpart word in
Serbian greda (beam, girder) and grana (branch).
Of course, all the above words are derived from the primal Hor-Gon
basis, either from the meaning "krug" (circle; the round form of the
sun; Serb. kraj, Eng area/region; Serb. okrajak, ogranak "a thing at
the end of circle") or in accordance to the heat irradiation of the
sun (Serb. "gorenje" burning)
DV
Stefano MAC:GREGOR
wrote:
Probably because the words are spelled differently, pronounced
differently, and mean different things.
--
Stefano
Daniel al-Autistiqui
I agree that it is convenient of them to cross-reference the obsolete
word "rear" to "rare". My point, though, is that the OED apparently
treats "rear" as a *synonym* of "rare" rather than a variant of it.
It has its own set of citations, and some of them go back to the Old
English period. For "rare" the earliest citation is dated 1655, but
that year seems to have little significance: it's just the date of the
earliest attested instance of "rare" being *spelled* that way. What's
wrong with having a single entry devoted to both "rare" and "rear"?
It would be listed under "rare", but you would find "rear" in the list
of historical forms of the word "rare", just like you would with any
other obsolete spelling of a word. Then at "rear" you would only find
a brief cross-reference, approximately "Obs. var. of _rare_".
In any case, do you agree with me that the cooking term "rare" is a
very old word in English, dating back a thousand years or so? The OED
entry makes it look as though it dates back only to 1655, and I've
seen it claimed that it was unattested before then. A few sources
give the year of first recorded use as 1784 instead.
Mike Lyle
I have no objection to the way the Dictionary handles this problem. If
you feel your objection is justified, you could write to them explaining
your concern.
>
> In any case, do you agree with me that the cooking term "rare" is a
> very old word in English, dating back a thousand years or so? The OED
> entry makes it look as though it dates back only to 1655, and I've
> seen it claimed that it was unattested before then. A few sources
> give the year of first recorded use as 1784 instead.
I prefer to believe what the OED says on the subject until I see
evidence for another view. But I /do/ believe that the "rear/rere"etc
form may often have been pronounced very much as we pronounce "rare".
Daniel al-Autistiqui
So you believe that the cooking term "rare" dates back only to 1655?
That's certainly not what I would have intuitively said, considering
that "hrer(e)" seems to have been the Old English form of the same
word.
>But I /do/ believe that the "rear/rere"etc
>form may often have been pronounced very much as we pronounce "rare".
>
As far as I can tell from the OED, this form was pronounced just like
our modern word "rear". Do you have access to the OED yourself, BTW?
What we are dealing with here is purely a matter of whether one
considers "rear" (or "rere") to be an old form of "rare" or a word in
its own right. The OED treats "rear" as a separate word, even though
it had the same meaning as "rare". I've never been able to understand
the logic in doing this. It's like saying that "sovranty" (which
occurs in the Rubaiyat) is a separate word from "sovereignty".
Mike Lyle
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 19:12:01 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
> <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> In any case, do you agree with me that the cooking term "rare" is a
>>> very old word in English, dating back a thousand years or so? The
>>> OED entry makes it look as though it dates back only to 1655, and
>>> I've seen it claimed that it was unattested before then. A few
>>> sources give the year of first recorded use as 1784 instead.
>>
>> I prefer to believe what the OED says on the subject until I see
>> evidence for another view.
>
> So you believe that the cooking term "rare" dates back only to 1655?
> That's certainly not what I would have intuitively said, considering
> that "hrer(e)" seems to have been the Old English form of the same
> word.
No, I do not believe the term dates back only to 1655. That is the year
of the first published use of that spelling known to the OED. The
Dictionary states at the top of its entry for "rare", "Later form of
REAR a.1".
>
>> But I /do/ believe that the "rear/rere"etc
>> form may often have been pronounced very much as we pronounce "rare".
>>
> As far as I can tell from the OED, this form was pronounced just like
> our modern word "rear". Do you have access to the OED yourself, BTW?
Yes, I do have access. The OED does indeed mention only the "rear"
pronunciation. I believe that another pronunciation may also have been
used. That could explain the change of spelling to "rare".
>
> What we are dealing with here is purely a matter of whether one
> considers "rear" (or "rere") to be an old form of "rare" or a word in
> its own right. The OED treats "rear" as a separate word, even though
> it had the same meaning as "rare". I've never been able to understand
> the logic in doing this. It's like saying that "sovranty" (which
> occurs in the Rubaiyat) is a separate word from "sovereignty".
I have not changed my mind: I believe OED lists the forms separately for
the convenience of its readers. As I have already said, OED makes it
perfectly clear that the two forms are essentially the same word, and
cross-references them.
Martin Ambuhl
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 19:12:01 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
> <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> In any case, do you agree with me that the cooking term "rare" is a
>>> very old word in English, dating back a thousand years or so? The OED
>>> entry makes it look as though it dates back only to 1655, and I've
>>> seen it claimed that it was unattested before then. A few sources
>>> give the year of first recorded use as 1784 instead.
>> I prefer to believe what the OED says on the subject until I see
>> evidence for another view.
>
> So you believe that the cooking term "rare" dates back only to 1655?
> That's certainly not what I would have intuitively said, considering
> that "hrer(e)" seems to have been the Old English form of the same
> word.
You need to reread the front matter to the OED. You will find that
there is no statement that a word dates back only to the earliest
citation. All you can be sure of is that there are written exemplars at
least as early as that date. There may be earlier written exemplars,
and the oral usage in almost all cases is older, perhaps much older.
The exceptions are those words that a writer purposely creates for the
occasion of his writing: those cases are rare compared to the entire
corpus of English.
Daniel al-Autistiqui
But what I've been trying to ask all along is, why do they put the
*citations* for the "rear" form under "rear"? I would have expected
to see "rear" identified as an "obsolete variant of RARE", and that
would be the end of the entry. If you look through the OED, you will
find that that is the way they handle most obsolete spellings. In the
case of the cooking term "rare", however, there are two sets of
citations, one under "rare" and one under "rear". Why do they single
out "rare" for putting the citations for all the earlier spellings in
a separate list?
Unfortunately I don't have the OED with me, so I can't give you an
example of a word that is treated differently from "rare"/"rear". (I
know what the OED says only because I look at it periodically when I'm
in the library.)
Mike Lyle
If it's so important to you, write and ask the editors.