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From: "Cohen, Izzy" <>
Subject: getting one's bearings => Gallium < Lecoq or Gallia (France) ?
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 12:10:46 -0600


Larry Horn wrote:

> This is very clever--you did have me going there for a minute.
> I take it (from the "WordPlay-L" reference) that you're not
> claiming that this is also the *correct* etymology, but rather
> a neat and somewhat plausible etymythology?

IMO, it is a *very* plausible etymology (despite my personal
disapproval of nearly all "folk-tale" etymologies). I think
the "bearings" in "getting your bearings" did not occur by
semantic shift from

> the verb "to bear", the old Indo-European root for 'carry' that
> ...uh, bears [nice pun :-] no relation to the Ursus noun. ...
> all the [OED's] cites at this entry--contain no allusion to the
> Big Dipper ...

> 13. a. ... In pl. the relative positions of surrounding objects.
> to take one's bearings: to determine one's position with regard
> to surrounding objects;
> ...
> Your point would, I gather, be that it's all the more a priori
> suspicious that both you and the ScienceNorth folks (that link
> is now dead, it appears)

Sorry about that.
The link was "split". If you join the .pdf from the next line
or cut and paste the entire link (through .pdf), it will work:
http://www.sciencenorth.on.ca/schools/teacherresources/edu_guides/IMAX/bears
.pdf

> came up with the same invented etymology.

I would say:
came up with the same non-dictionary etymology.

Dictionary etymologies, including those in the OED,
range from "educated guesses" to near certainty.
At the near certainty end of the spectrum I would
place the names of recently discovered elements.
Typically, the discoverer explains why he gave the
element its name.

I remembered the element Gallium had a very cute
derivation. Random House online says:
[1870-75; < NL, = L gall(us) cock (trans. of F
coq, from Lecoq de Boisbaudran, 19th-cent. French
chemist) + NL -ium - IUM 2]

But The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology hedges a
bit and says:
... probably formed from a play on words by the
French chemist Lecoq de Boisbaudran, its discoverer,
translating French lecoq rooster into Latin gallus...

http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/elem/ga.html
Gallium was discovered in 1875 by the French chemist
Paul Émile (François) Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912).
... He announced the discovery in his article
"Caractères chimiques et spectroscopiques d'un nouveau
métal, le gallium, découvert dans une blende de la mine
de Pierrefitte, vallée d'Argelès (Pyrénées)" in 1875,
without any explanation for the choice of the name.

Shortly after the naming of the new element the story
came that the discoverer Lecoq de Boisbaudran has named
the element after himself: gallium > gallus = cock = in
French: le coq. Two years later, in 1877, Lecoq published
"About a New Metal, Gallium" [in Annales de Chimie (5)
Vol. 10 (1877) p. 100-141]. In this second article he
explained why he named the new metal Gallium:
"On August 27, 1875, between three and four at night, I
perceived the first indications of the existence of a
new element that I named gallium in honor of France
(Gallia)." ...(cf. Francium).

OK. Here is Lecoq himself claiming that he named Gallium
after France and not after himself... in a very
prestigious scientific journal. Was this dissimulation?

On 16 March 1999, Svetla Baykoucheva asked on the
Chemical Information Sources Discussion List:
"Was the French chemist Paul-Emile LeCoq de Boisbeaudran
still alive, when the chemical element he had discovered
was named Gallium?"

Wade Lee answered on the same day:
"I have done extensive research on this matter along
with a chemist colleague, Dr. Jimmie Edwards. He was
indeed alive, and he himself named it, and specified
that it was in honor of his country, France, aka Gallia.
During his lifetime, the false etymology arose that it
was named after himself, Le Coq, in its latin form, Gallus.
According to his obituary by Arnaud de Gramont, he was
very anxious to deny this rumour during his life. The
'gallus' etymology is frequently cited in French
dictionaries, and the 'gallia' etymology is usually
quoted in the English language dictionaries, with the
notable exception of the OED. The Third ed. of the OED
will correct its entry."
Source: Archives of chminf-l.

OK. Here we see that even the OED was temporarily
incorrect in its etymology for Gallium.

See also
http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/elem/fr.html
... [Francium was discovered] in 1939 by Marguerite Perey
(1909-1975) at Curie's Institute in Paris. ... The element
was first known as Actinium-K, following the naming system
for natural radioactive sources. In 1946 it was named
Francium by Perey for her native country. It was the second
element named after France! (cf. Gallium). The name and
symbol were accepted by the International Union of Chemists
(IUC) in 1949. Initially it had the chemical symbol Fa,
later it became Fr.

Israel Cohen (please forgive this unbearably long post)


At 7:21 AM -0600 2/17/03, Cohen, Izzy wrote:
> Last week I decided that I had figured out the
> etymology of the word "bearings" in the phrase
> "getting your bearings" and wrote
> (on the WordPlay-L list):
>
> Getting Your Bearings
> =====================
>
> The two stars that form the pouring edge of the bowl
> of the Big Dipper [Ursa Major = big bear] point to ...
>
> Polaris
> 1. the polestar or North Star ... in the constellation
> Ursa Minor [Little Bear]: the outermost star in the
> handle of the Little Dipper.
>
> This explains why, in English, the process of determining
> the direction you face is called "getting one's bearings".
>
> bearings
> 9. a horizontal direction expressed in degrees east
> or west of ... north ...
>
> Today I did a Google search for ["getting your bearings"
> + email] and found this 58-page website:
> >>
>
http://www.sciencenorth.on.ca/schools/teacherresources/edu_guides/IMAX/bears
> .pdf
> ...
> If you look at the two stars forming the beginning of the
> "bowl" and follow along the line they make, you will see
> the North Star, Polaris. The star forms part of the tail
> of the Lesser Bear, and was always used by sailors as a
> guide to finding north. In fact, the phrase, "getting
> your bearings" comes from the practice of using the
> Great Bear to find the North Star. ...
> <<
> Now, if I claim (as I do) that I reached this conclusion
> independently, would anyone believe me? Would plagarism
> detection software believe me?
>
>

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