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Path: utzoo!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Call for Proper Noun Idioms
Message-ID: <1027@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Jan-86 22:30:36 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1027
Posted: Tue Jan  7 22:30:36 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jan-86 22:44:36 EST
References: <161@aero.ARPA> <868@kuling.UUCP> <869@kuling.UUCP> <6716@boring.UUCP> <4122T3B@PSUVM>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 18
Summary: 

> >An expression for "gibberish" in Dutch is "Koeterwaals".  This could mean
> >something like "the language spoken in Koeterwaal" (several Dutch place
> >ames end in -WAAL) except that there is no such place.

> This had never occured to me before, but reading Lambert Meertens's
> posting seems to lead to the conclusion that the English word
> CATERWAUL comes from the same source, and that the etymology and
> definitions in NEW AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY (1981) may be
> partly "folk linguistics." ... [it says] perhaps from Low German
> katerwaulen : kater, tomcat . . . + waulen, to screech."

Why couldn't "Koeterwaals" be a play on "caterwaul/katerwaulen"
and the place-name-language ending "waals"?  Sounds good to me.

By the way, Random House and OED more or less confirm the origin
of "caterwaul".

Mark Brader