The Voynich Ninja

(22-07-2023, 11:12 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I always considered (without knowing for certain) that use of a word as an expletive implies that the word in its regular meaning should already have existed earlier.

I don't think that's necessarily true, see my "minced oath" edit above. 

In Dutch, take for example a word like "potverdorie", a minced version of "godverdomme". The word "pot" exists, but "verdorie" is nonsense. And people don't tend to think of an actual pot when saying potverdorie. Words like "gosh" and "darn" don't exist either. The preexistence of a certain word may help the expletive move towards it, of course. In the Dutch example, the fact that "pot" existed already will certainly be relevant. But the minced version will be its own separate entity. 

In the case of "bock's" for "Devil's", we aren't really dealing with a minced oath, more of a euphemism. In that case, a preexisting word is used indeed. But the spelling is still an issue. People were apparently very unlikely to spell a regular genitive with /x/. So when did they start writing the expletive with /x/? 

One problem here may be that the words are taboo and our data may simply be incomplete. Only in later periods, it may have become more common to write things like this down. So I'm not too concerned about the dating arguments. It is interesting for the meaning though, if we ever want to understand more about who wrote this and why. 

These are the three scenarios so far:

* Someone wrote an ingredient, goat's liver, but made the very unlikely choice of writing the genitive ending as "x".
* Someone wrote a minced oath, turning /gotts/ into /poks/. In this case, the spelling is less problematic.
* Someone wrote a euphemism, naming the devil as "bock". Since this may (through repeated use of the genitive form) have been perceived as a separate word, spelling with "x" is not abnormal.

The first option has the advantage to fit within the context of the page. The other two options have the advantage that they can explain why it was spelled with "x".

(21-07-2023, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The word for six, "sex" is a common one indeed, as are certain others like ax and ox. 

I think those are common in English, not in German. The point is that in German the respective common ending is "-hs" or "ck[e]s", but somehow it is changed into "-x".

(21-07-2023, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now of course the most interesting one is "pox" for "bocks" in Fastnachtspielen. If memory serves, those are also all expletives?

Well yes, that's what I've been posting about.

(21-07-2023, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yeah but his Latin didn't make much sense

In a charm, it does not necessarily has to. Ceteris paribus, I would prefer a non-sensical phrase composed of three valid words to a non-sensical phrase composed of three invalid words.  

(22-07-2023, 11:12 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There has been quite a discussion on the word 'poxleber' in the old forum

...and here in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread as well. But I think Koen now really puts it in a different light from the linguistic point of view.

I think those are common in English, not in German. The point is that in German the respective common ending is "-hs" or "ck[e]s", but somehow it is changed into "-x".

(22-07-2023, 11:12 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There has been quite a discussion on the word 'poxleber' in the old forum

The letterform that looks somewhat like X is also is some Voynich words, but very infrequently, just like the letter H is used unfrequently, because is usually connected to c and combined into bench glyph ch. In Slovenian, X  was replaced with ks, however in the old Glagolitza the X stood for H sound and letter. When Glagolitza split into Cyrilica, the X was (and still is) used for letter H.
We can assume that whoever wrote the marginalia was old and senile, mixing the letter-shapes and languages, as is evident from the 'sloppy' handwriting and the use of OROR. However, he might have been familiar with Glagolitic alphabet. The proof of the interest in Glagolitza in German speaking world is the Glagolitic book of Georgius de Sclavonia, a native of Brežice, present day Slovenia, written in about 1400 at the Vienna University. He wrote this book before he started teaching at Sarbone in Paris. J.K. Petersen mentioned him in connection with the shape of the letter 'g' in marginalia.
The assumption that the text is a recipe that includes goat liver might be misleading and limits other possibilities.
I just quickly made a comparison of my reading of the words containing x with Smith and Petersen. 
My reading is meaninful and is also consistent with the way the words could be spelled in the 15th century Slovnian. I read the word POXLEBEN as POHLEVEN, which means 'meek', 'timid'. B and V were often mixed up, like Beneto - Veneto. The word that follows is VMEN/UMEN which is Slovenian means 'smart', 'of good mind'. I read both, and the next word,  as adjectives with -en suffix.
The two similar words containing X  are transcribed by Smith as Maria(x) and by Petersen as MORIX and MARIX respectively. I read them as MONIH and MANYX. Since the first vowel is unstressed semivowel, the author was not sure which vowel to use to replace the original spellig MNIX (monk). 
The word SIX, spelled with a long s, could mean english SIX, or Old German SEHS.
These are just a few ideas.

(22-07-2023, 12:37 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(21-07-2023, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The word for six, "sex" is a common one indeed, as are certain others like ax and ox. 

I think those are common in English, not in German. The point is that in German the respective common ending is "-hs" or "ck[e]s", but somehow it is changed into "-x".

I mean, as common as it gets in the sparsely populated world of native German words written with x :) Apart from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. question, I do find this interesting in itself: why do the recipe books I checked use "x" only in some specific German words? It is absolutely clear that x was seen as a Latin phenomenon (numerals and words), so how did they decide which German words got to use it? In some cases, it may be because the word felt Latin, but certainly not all.

I went to the Swedish Riksarkivet website, which contains many transcriptions of charters, also in German. I filtered for German language and looked for usage of "x" in German words.

* dar bewise gi uns sunderlix guden willen ane -> This is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I found, certainly not a genitive, but it is a native German word.

* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: frygdages vor pinxsten -> this is a Latin loan, but it's a tricky case since the Latin did not contain an x originally.

* The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I found is more interesting:
"i schifpfunt spex" -> one schifpfunt (unit) of bacon (speck). If I understand correctly, this is a genitive form - specks - written with x. Seems like the goat is alive after all.

(Still these are very rare though - by comparison, Roman numerals are much more easily found).

(22-07-2023, 11:42 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In Dutch, take for example a word like "potverdorie", a minced version of "godverdomme". The word "pot" exists, but "verdorie" is nonsense. And people don't tend to think of an actual pot when saying potverdorie. Words like "gosh" and "darn" don't exist either. The preexistence of a certain word may help the expletive move towards it, of course. In the Dutch example, the fact that "pot" existed already will certainly be relevant. But the minced version will be its own separate entity. 

Thanks, that indeed makes complete sense. All of these examples are euphemisms, where the speaker prefers a 'lite' version compared to the full-blown swear word. 'Potverdorie' even has two, and each one of them could also be used separately.

I find this word highly interesting, because it is basically the same thing as our 'poxleber', where the 'g' of 'Gott' became a 'p'. I don't know how old the Dutch 'pot-' varieties are, but it is kind of tempting to think that this could even be a direct descendant.
But that doesn't matter.

Clearly, and I agree, the euphemisms do not have to be existing words, and poxleber is an example, though it certainly is a meaningful word.

I suspect that we are much in the same situation as with the crossbow sagisttarius a decade or so ago, where we just knew of one example, and there were plenty more to be found.

(23-07-2023, 05:13 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.All of these examples are euphemisms, where the speaker prefers a 'lite' version compared to the full-blown swear word.

Yes, but we are looking at two different types of euphemisms, and I haven't worked out yet which one it is.

1) "pock", a male goat, as a euphemism for the devil. In this case, they believed that speaking the name of the devil would bring evil, so they used a different, existing word to describe him. A similar practice would be to say "passed away" instead of "died". You just use different, existing words as a euphemism for the word to be avoided.

2) "pox" as a minced form of Gotts. This would be the equivalent of the potverdorie case, which as you point out is rather similar. This is different from the case above, as "pot" is not a way to describe God, it just sounds similar.


Now one thing I should point out is that "poxleber" is not an isolated swearword, it's not like people yelled out "poxleber!" when they hit their thumb with a hammer. Instead, the phrase is always something like:

"May pox something cause you harm".

May pox liver hurt you. May pox five wounds do something unpleasant to you. May pox blood do something. May pox body do something to you. 

In most of these cases, it does seem clear that God is intended and not the Devil: the five wounds of Jesus, his blood, his body. Not sure about the liver though. Note that the phrase on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. does not seem to point towards the standard type of phrase in which the expletive form of pox is used.

Still, I must say that I was almost ready to commit to the "expletive" theory, since it looked like genitives written with -x were impossible to find. However, in the second database I browsed I found "spex", the genitive of "speck". And I somehow missed that an example of "poxleber" from a cookbook exists in the pdf you linked above.

All of the examples we are dealing with are rare in the 15th century. People were unlikely to take the Lord's name in vain in their writing, even a minced form. People were still genuinely afraid of the devil. It makes sense that examples of the written expletive only start occurring slightly later, in texts of plays for example, to reflect a certain character's way of speaking. And for goat's liver, it appears that scribes did not often replace genitives ending in /ks/ with "x", so these examples are also rare.

Interesting to me that in Holland they use the word "potverdorie".
We here use the word "Gottvertorie" as well as "Gottverdammie" which means Gott verdamme mich, God damn me.
Verdamme = verurteilen, condemn.
And if you really listen, "Gottverdammie, sondern Gopfverdammie" people don't say "God damn, but Gopf damn".

[attachment=7522]

[attachment=7523]

Found 2 more variations on Pox / Box (Horn).
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(23-07-2023, 09:41 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.2) "pox" as a minced form of Gotts

Koen, "pox" is not a minced form of Gotts. It is a minced form of "bocks". "Bocks" transgressing into "pox" is a linguistic phenomenon.  Pox being used as an euphemism for Gotts is, I believe, a cultural one.

Quote:Extrem unterschiedliche Schwurformeln werden so zum historischen Anwendungsfall des Prinzips, wie
es Hughes an einem extremen Beispiel demonstriert: “‘For Christ’s sake!’ might, in other
company, transform to ‘For pity’s sake!’, ‘For shit’s sake!’ or even ‘For fuck’s sake!’. This series
might provoke the obvious (but naive) question, ‘What do Christ, pity, shit and fuck have in
common?’ The answer, in this context, is of course, ‘Nothing whatever. They are simply terms of
high emotional charge which have acreted over time into the formula to the point that they can
now be used interchangeably.’”

I don't think the template is always like "may pox something cause you harm". There are plenty of examples here, section 4.1.4:

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(23-07-2023, 12:27 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Koen, "pox" is not a minced form of Gotts. It is a minced form of "bocks". "Bocks" transgressing into "pox" is a linguistic phenomenon.  Pox being used as an euphemism for Gotts is, I believe, a cultural one.

I'm not sure if I understand you here. When they say something like "pox pauch", i.e. God's belly, how did pox come to mean God? I would just see it as a minced version: pox sounds like gotts, so it is used instead. There is no thematic connection between God and a "bock" or anything similar.


Regarding the phrase "may God's ... harm you", you are right, it seems to have been used more generally. However, the instances of "God's Liver" I've seen have all been in the "may God's liver cause you harm" context.

The paper you link is interesting in that it does provide the context where we might expect these curses to be written. Here's a rough translation of the relevant paragraphs:

Quote:In German carnival plays, there is a lot of cursing and swearing, not least by the members of God [i.e. the curse involves pars of God's body]. Quite uninhibitedly, a fool's character on the stage can confront the Antichrist with a "Pox grind!". 

The specific context of using the oath varies greatly. For example, a man responds with a swear to the praises of a quack for a miracle cure:
"Pox pauch, [God's belly] may that be a good doctor for my bellyache, who complains about his belly and hasn't farted in eight days."

In this case, the swear marks an exclamation of surprise. Of course, its real piquancy comes from the fact that the divine belly is mentioned in the same breath as the neighbor's flatulence.

An unmistakable focus of the oaths is on situations where excitement, conflicts, and aggressions dominate the field. Let's take, for example, a peasant play in which a troubled man is at the center, pursued and reviled by his quarrelsome wife. Another farmer tries to support him and put the woman in her place with strong words:

"Pox haut [God's skin], I mean, you're not clever, That you fuel such irrationality, And yet every man is a man..."
"If you were my wife," he continues, "I would teach you obedience." When she threatens him, he persists in challenging her:
"Pox leichnams willen [something like by God's dead body], just go ahead and tear at me!"
This doesn't go well for him, as he is so maltreated by the strong woman that he quickly has to call for help:
"Oh, help, dear friends, for the love of all that's sacred!"

The affirming, self-confident swearing quickly turns into a ridiculous cry for help - undoubtedly a consciously employed stylistic device to expose the protagonist's boasting.

What these have in common is the following contexts:
* Carnivalesque: more is allowed around carnival, and there can be swearing by certain characters
* Boorish or mocked characters: a fool, a farmer, a boastful man
* Dialogue, direct speech: it is not the scribe or author himself swearing like this! It is the character. This is clearly not behavior to be emulated.

Therefore, it seems very unlikely that the person who wrote the marginalia decided to swear on the page. We only see these curses after the 15th century in comical, carnivalesque or mocking dialogue, uttered by characters that are not to be respected.

Add to that the fact that there is some context on the page that suggests the writer was into recipes (so nim), and I think the case for "goat's liver" as an ingredient is a bit stronger.