The Voynich Ninja

Regarding the question if "pox" can be a genitive form, we need a situation where the scribe decided to replace the usual spelling /cks/ by /x/. Did this ever happen? When did scribes use /x/ to begin with? 

As a quick test, I went through the cookbooks transcribed at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. These are the situations:

* /x/ is not used at all: B1, B2, B5, B6, Br1, Bs1, Er1, Ha1, Hi1, M1, M7, M8, Mi1, N2, Pr1, Sb1, St1, Ste1, W2, Wol1
* /x/ is only used in Latin numerals: B3, B4, Bs2, Db1, Er2, H2, H3, H4, Ka1, Ka2, Ka3, Ko1, M2, M5, M6, M9, M10, M11, N1, Pa1, So1, W1, W4, Wo2, Wo3, Wo4
* /x/ is only used in Latin numerals and paragraphs of Latin text: A1, K1, Sb2
* /x/ is used in Latin loanwords within the German text: Ds1
* /x/ is used in German words: Gr1, Sb3, Wo1, Wo7, Wo8, Wo9, Wo10, Wo11

Summary: 46 manuscripts in this selection do not use /x/ at all, or only as a Roman numeral. Four additional manuscripts only use it in Latin words. Only 8 manuscripts use /x/ in German words, and most of those are later than the 15th century.

The manuscripts that use /x/ in German words show the following examples:
Gr1: sex, waxein, wax, wüext, braxsenn
Sb3: sex
Wo1 (16th or 17th century): oxn, bix
Wo7 (16th century): flux, oxen, wax, waxen, weixel, weixsel
Wo8 (17th century): bix
Wo9 (17th century): weixell, weixel, weÿxel, weixeltaig, oxenzungen
Wo10 (16th century): Mastix, Weyxel, weÿxlen, bux, oxen, wax
Wo11 (16th century): Oximell, laxiert, simplex, complexi, Storax (Latin loanwords)

An interesting observation here is that /x/ tends to gravitate towards certain words that become associated with it: ox, wax, bix, weixel. I did not encounter a single situation where an incidental /ks/ like in the genitive pocks is replaced by /x/. 

Hence, it is possible that the spelling /pox/ became associates with expletive use, but it is in my opinion much less likely for a simple genitive of pock, "male goat".

This was just a small selection of manuscripts, but they do paint a certain picture of the use of /x/ in 15th century German texts. Maybe counterexamples can be found.

I did a search for *x (means words ending in x) at Woerterbuchnetz, and here's specifically the Lexer subset of the results:

antrax (for edelstein)
ax (for ackes)
bax
balax (eine art blasser oder auch ganz weisser rubine)
crûzifix
eppenax (for eckesahs)
fenix
flux
fix (rasch, schnell)
kex
mort-ax (for mort-ackes)
pox (for bocks, with the note "often in Fastnachtspielen")
sëx (for sehs)
strax (for strackes)
tax

So, pox is in line with ax, eppenax, sex and strax, all of which use x as substitution for ck[e]s or hs.

bax, as far as I understand, is the variant of pox (expletive).

Also notable is balax which is same as balas (blass) and thus supports Aga's idea expressed in the other thread that -x as the word ending may be variant of -ss, that is e.g. "marix morix vix" may be read as "maris moris vis"

(21-07-2023, 02:52 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also notable is balax which is same as balas (blass) and thus supports Aga's idea expressed in the other thread that -x as the word ending may be variant of -ss, that is e.g. "marix morix vix" may be read as "maris moris vis"

Yeah but his Latin didn't make much sense  I'd also wonder why they spell specifically ballax with x.

Several of the words you list are clearly Latin loanwords. The others are specific words that somehow ended up being spelled with "x". The word for six, "sex" is a common one indeed, as are certain others like ax and ox. 

Now of course the most interesting one is "pox" for "bocks" in Fastnachtspielen. If memory serves, those are also all expletives?

[attachment=7508]

According to the Idiotikon.
Fuchs, as well as Fux, Fugsch, Fugs.

According to Sadelacher, but also Fuks.
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Here with hard pronunciation Fuks, and somewhat softer Fugs.

But these are not all pronunciations. Variants to Fuchs alone in the second letter. This is also true for "x".
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(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  

To put it in a nutshell. "sis maris moris vis" are real words. You can turn that around however you want.

Here you have the examples for "sis", "maris" you already know, with "moris" there are 7 application possibilities and with "vis "4.
And now make something clever out of it.
I have checked it, asked KI and Google.

And now I ask you.

[attachment=7509][attachment=7510][attachment=7511][attachment=7512][attachment=7513]

You don't just need the dictionary entries to exist, you need the grammar to make sense as well. But let's keep this thread about the usage of x, feel free to make a new thread about the Latin.

The 'x' has always been an oddball letter in German, even today it is associated with magic, exotic or humoristic things. Ask kids to come up with a magic spell and 'x' will most likely be highly over-represented compared to a formal text. Same goes for poetry and theater, artistic and informal writing. Yet I think the genitive use in bocks- -> box/pox without expletive background is unusual, do we have more examples of both writing styles from recipes and plays like Fastnachtspiele?

@Koen
Now that was a cheap explanation.
But never mind.

Sags mit "x", das war wohl nix.

(21-07-2023, 11:28 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yet I think the genitive use in bocks- -> box/pox without expletive background is unusual

Yes, that's the point I'm trying to get across. People seem to have thought so far that it is perfectly normal to write something like "then take a male goat's liver" as "so nim ain pox leber", but the usage of x would be really out of place here. So far, it seems like x is limited to a few categories:

* Latin numerals
* Latin words (either loan words in a German text or entire fragments of Latin)
* A limited list of German words that somehow got x in their spelling

So far, the list definitely does not include free usage when the genitive of a word in /k/ ends up making a /ks/ sound. So even if I favor the "cooking ingredient" reading thematically, I must for now favor the expletive meaning on grounds of the spelling. Looking for further examples of the use of x in 15th century German writing might confirm, reject or refine this statement.

Edit: this is why I think the expletive use could be spelled with [x]. Saying /poks/ instead of /gotts/ is an example of a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., "formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" for "God"."

If this is indeed a deliberate mispronunciation of "God's", or even a euphemistic use of "bock's" for the devil, then the word will be perceived as separate from the original. If you say "gosh" instead of "God" or "Crickey" instead of "Christ", you are not thinking about the original words anymore. Hence, the "pox" use may have gotten its own spelling, its own separate word image.

I was assuming that everyone knows, but perhaps not...

There has been quite a discussion on the word 'poxleber' in the old forum, as Rich Santacoloma used it as an argument that the MS is a modern fake. 

Without going into all that, the term 'poxleber'  was argued to be first used as an expletive in the work of Hans Sachs. In fact, it was used already before, in the Festnachtspiele of Hans Folz.

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.

In any case, a reader at Rich's blog wrote this:

Quote:Here’s an older example of “poxleber”:
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This may take a while to load. The word is on p. 89. It’s from a 1503 law of the city of Kitzbühel (Tyrol) and here clearly just means a goat’s liver, not a curse as in the Hans Sachs play. Still not old enough for the C14 date of the VMS, but about 50 years older than the Sachs example.