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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
In a previous discussion, one way to distinguish between an eggcorn and a folk etymology was suggested to be rarity vs. pervasiveness. That puts “Persian” solidly in the folk etymology basket. A folk etymology can also be a mistaken understanding of an acorn’s provenance. I think it’s not possible to know if persian was born as an eggcorn or not.
The Greeks seem to have found the local name for the Old Persian PÄrsa region “unparsable”, and they began to refer to it as Perses, Persica or Persis. I couldn’t determine whether the original coinage was eggcoiny, or if it was only the later interpretation of the name that was off the track. Either on first contact, or later, the redoubtable Persians were considered to be such formidable foes because they were the offspring of Perseus, the warrior god, through his son Perses. Perseus is in fact eponymous. His name comes from deep roots for, variously, to waste, ravage, sack, destroy, strike, cut. The origin of the Persians is explained in the histories of Herodotus.
Herodotus recounts the folk etymology*
It was not till Perseus, the son of Jove and Danae, visited Cepheus the son of Belus, and, marrying his daughter Andromeda, had by her a son called Perses (whom he left behind him in the country because Cepheus had no male offspring), that the nation took from this Perses the name of Persians.
Xerxes invokes blood ties with the Argives to maneuver them into neutrality**
“Men of Argos, King Xerxes speaks thus to you. We Persians deem that the Perses from whom we descend was the child of Perseus the son of Danae, and of Andromeda the daughter of Cepheus. Hereby it would seem that we come of your stock and lineage. So then it neither befits us to make war upon those from whom we spring; nor can it be right for you to fight, on behalf of others, against us. Your place is to keep quiet and hold yourself aloof. Only let matters proceed as I wish, and there is no people whom I shall have in higher esteem than you.”
Other ways of casting the persians: besmirching the image of someone by “casting him as Persian”; “casting asperges” might come from another language (“cast asparagus”?) but can be legit too; I like “cast expertions” as the haughty opinion of self-appointed experts.
snippet from www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishwe … torial.htm
Since the failure of the government might cast as Persians the Royal Palace, King Gyanendra has to realize that his responsibility has been greatly enhanced
Religious doctrine forum
You really need a concordance and some study time before you cast asperges on others.
News forum
I would like to bet you 10 pound you sit in your air conditioned office shining a seat with your bottom in front of a computer with no friends and definitely no idea what it is like in the real world while you cast expertions on the political matters that you simply do not comprehend.
Finally, the same eggcoinage in our day, in thinking that the rain of Perseid meteors falls mainly in Iran.
UFO reports over Sweden
Case for meteors: Some of the meteors fell during the period of the Persian meteor shower.
*The Persian Wars, Herodotus, trans. Rawlinson 1942, para. [7.61]
**The Persian Wars, Herodotus, trans. Rawlinson 1942, para. [7.150]
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I can’t get the link about King Gyanendra to work. But I wonder if the line is really a version of “cast aspersions.” King Gyanendra of Nepal believes that he is descended from the Persians—calls himself “Shah.”
When it comes to folk etymologies, the Romans beat us hands down. (Funny phrase that, “hands down.” Apparently a horse racing metaphor.).
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I sat on this too long and the original “cast as Persians” post is gone, unfortunately. The original link, from Nepal, was very hard to get through to even when it was there. And I should have said that boxes 3 to 5 were imaginatively construed versions of “cast aspersions.” In the original reference #3, a political crisis was likely to cast a bad light on the government, so that aspersions might be sprinkling on the Palace. Or rather, the members of the government might be “cast as Persians,” with the same negative connotations as aspersions. I think aspersions used to be sprinkled about like holy water; only later did they come to be associated with mudslinging. “Cast as Persians,” which initially I had great hope for, was, regrettably, a gnonce, another reason for submitting this post here in the “other” category.
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