The Season of Gossamer

[kot_kam]

В английском больше одного слова для "паутины". Я, кажется, знаю их все, и угадайте откуда - ну из Толкина, конечно.

Осенняя паутина, вот эти легкие, прозрачные паутинки, что парят в воздухе и липнут на штаны, когда идешь через луг - это gossamer.



Заглянул в Большой Оксфордский, посмотреть, откуда слово такое.

[ME. gos(e)somer(e, app. f. goose n. + summer n. Cf. the synonymous Eng. dial. summer-goose (Craven), summer-colt, G. mädchensommer (lit. ‘girls' summer’), altweibersommer (‘old women's summer’); also G. sommerfäden, Du. zomerdraden, Sw. sommartråd, all literally ‘summer thread’.
   The reason for the appellation is somewhat obscure. It is usually assumed that goose in this compound refers to the ‘downy’ appearance of gossamer. But it is to be noted that G. mädchen-, altweibersommer mean not only ‘gossamer’, but also a summer-like period in late autumn, a St. Martin's summer; that the obs. Sc. go-summer had the latter meaning; and that it is in the warm periods of autumn that gossamer is chiefly observed. These considerations suggest the possibility that the word may primarily have denoted a ‘St. Martin's summer’ (the time when geese were supposed to be in season: cf. G. Gänsemonat ‘geese-month’, November), and have been hence transferred to the characteristic phenomenon of the period. On this view summer-goose (which by etymologizing perversion appears also as summer-gauze) would be a transposition.]

1.A.1 A fine filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs, spun by small spiders, which is seen floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn, or spread over a grassy surface: occas. with a and pl., a thread or web of gossamer.

Comments

[zwilling.livejournal.com]

Бабьелетники, значит.

У Дэна Симмонса в «Гиперионе» есть инопланетные летающие существа, которые так и называются radiant gossamers from Maul-Covenant:

«A second ago an insect or bird the size and color of a hummingbird but with gossamer wings a meter across paused five meters out to inspect me before diving toward the sea with folded wings».

В переводе они называются просто «паутиной», что странно выглядит, конечно: «А на самом верху перепархивают с ветки на ветку птички-огневки и многоцветная паутина».