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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!aeb
From: aeb@mcvax.UUCP (Andries Brouwer)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Tuna Fish
Message-ID: <616@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 21-Apr-85 09:07:42 EST
Article-I.D.: mcvax.616
Posted: Sun Apr 21 09:07:42 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Apr-85 01:00:18 EST
References: <538@cadovax.UUCP> <6390@boring.UUCP>
Reply-To: aeb@mcvax.UUCP (Andries Brouwer)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 14

In article <6390@boring.UUCP> lambert@boring.UUCP (Lambert Meertens) writes:
>A similar phenomenon occurs in German "Haifisch" = shark, where "Hai" by
>itself has no other meaning than shark.  Note also that tuna fish in German
>is "Thunfisch", where "Thun" by itself is not a German word.  Danish also
>has "tunfisk", but no stand-alone "tun".

These words are relatively young: German has Hai(fisch) and Thunfisch
since the 16th century. But at the time Thunfisch was adopted, thun
was the spelling for 'to do' (it is often still pronounced like that).
Similarly German has Wal(fisch) and Dutch walvis 'whale' while Wal
has several other meanings (e.g. 'wall') - English and Danish are content
with whale and hval since no confusion is possible.

By the way, English also has tunny.