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Re: [romanceconlang] Sports



En réponse à Adam Walker :


What a bizzarre semantic field!  You wouldn't happen
to know the etymology would you?

The Online Hachette Encyclopédie says that it comes actually from the phrase "mords pion": "bite pawn" ("pion" used to be a common French word for "infantryman", hence its use in chess), with "bite" in the imperative. The phrase would have come to be used as a single word. I find it rather plausible, since phrases transformed into single words are common in French (with the same structure, I can think of "porte-plume": "penholder", which is transparently "porte plume": "hold feather"). The different uses become clear when you think of different ways to take "pion" metaphorically ;))) .

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.