Borges interview in Le Monde Diplomatique

[Dave Monroe]

See here, however ...

Attridge, Derek.  "Language as History/History as
   Language: Saussure and the Romance of Etymology."
   Post-structuralism and the Question of History.
   Ed. Derek Attridge.  New York: Cambridge UP, 1987.

Er, trust me ... no, the point being--and your
etymological point being well taken, Cyrus--that such
niceties drift nonetheless in the everyday world of
usage.  E.g. "outrage" (one of Attridge's examples),
which technically has nothing to do with the English,
"rage," but ... but I'm curious if Borges might have
made the same statement elsewhere and earlier, and if
perhaps he is replicating some bit of "popular" wisdom
here ...

--- CyrusGeo at netscape.net wrote:
>  
> Well, Michel, please excuse my fastidiousness, but
> it seems Mr. Borges is not so correct on this one.
> According to the OED, *black* and *blake* (meaning
> pale, pallid, wan, denoting absence of colour) are
> in fact derived from different, though similar,
> roots. *Blake* does come from the Old High German
> *bleich*, Old Teutonic *blaiko* (pale, shining,
> white). *Black*, on the other hand, comes from Old
> High German *blah* or *blach*. The Old Teutonic root
> was *bloeko* or *blako* or *blakko*, meaning burnt,
> scortched. The reason for the mix-up between the two
> is, firstly, that both derivations ultimately have
> the meaning of *absence of colour* (one reverting to
> white, the other to black), and, secondly, a long
> vowel was used in some Old English poems for the
> word *blac* or *blacan*, meaning black, thus
> confusing it with *blac* (with an accentuated a'),
> meaning white, shining.
> 
> God, I hope that helped.

Indeed it did.

G_d.

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