[Dixonary] Rnd 1672 GERLIND Results

[Dodi Schultz]

>> While I can find lots of definitions of GERLIND using Google, they
>> all use exactly the same words as the Webster 1913 def that I used.
>> Nowhere could I find any additional information at all, except that
>> a small proportion of salmon drift out to sea again after spawning.
>>
>> It's a strange word obviously describing a very limited phenomenon!
>>
>> -- Tim L

Fascinating, Tim. Neither of the Merriam-Webster unabridged editions I have
(1864 and 1934) lists it. The fish book on my nature shelf doesn't, either.
Did you come across anything on the etymology?

--Dodi

[Tim Lodge]

--- In coryphaeus (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, Dodi Schultz <schultz@c...> wrote:
>
> Did you come across anything on the etymology?
>

I found the word in the online edition of Websters Revised
Unabridged Dictionary 1913 at
http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/Webster/data/664.html. The
only bit I didn't include was [Prov. Eng.] - I assume that's
Provincial English, which is pretty vague!

Ah - I've just found something else in the Century Dictionary Online
<http://www.global-language.com/century/>, which isn't indexed by
Google. It has:

gerling, n. [Perhaps a var. of yearling, with orig. g. ] A salmon
which has returned the second time from the sea. [Local, Eng.]

I'm not convinced by that etymology, as a salmon - as I understand
it from other websites - would be about 6 years old the first time
it returned from the sea, but it is a possibility.

-- Tim L

[bonnyjars]

Dodi and others

Re 'Grelind' -- One of my refs says

>
># (n.) A salmon returning from the sea the second time.
>
>(This definition is from the 1913 Webster's Dictionary and may be outdated.)
>

Several refs say "Prov Eng" (after Webster 1913)

All places I can find it are actually American. The OED (1973) does not know it

In fact on *all* google refs to gerlind that refer to a salmon either they casually quote the def we were given or actually specify
that it comes from Webster 1913
So it almost looks as though that is its full etymology - that it comes from Webster 1913 (I did find a reference to misspellings eg
grelind, erglind etc but could find no comparable definitions)
-------------------------------------

My original statement about some salmon making it back to the sea to come again was from my memory...

After looking for the word gerlind I then searched a rather extensive set of google references to breeding salmon... Several
scientific papers casually say that the biology of salmon is that they breed and die,
.... however there are the odd references like this one from the Atlantic Salmon Trust.
>Do all salmon die after spawning?
>
>About 90-95% of all Atlantic salmon die following their first spawning, but some survive to spawn two or three times: as many as
four spawnings have been reported. The survivors, predominantly female, return to sea to feed between spawnings.
>


I also found a very technical paper which states "with very rare exceptions return mating does not occur *except in Atlantic
Salmon* where up to 10% may breed more than once" (my emphasis).

So I'm about as wise as I can be and still completely bemused


JohnnyB



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