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From: Nathaniel Taylor <>
Subject: Re: Geoffrey Plantagenet's name (... Plantevelu ...)
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 16:51:12 GMT
References: <43F46504.9030500@isc.keele.ac.uk>


In article <>,
(John Plant) wrote:

> > Without going to that article, I would ask, what reason do you have
> > for crediting only one of the two general meanings of the word
> > 'planta', in this nickname? Since the Latin word 'planta' was since
> > classical times EITHER 'a shoot or plant', OR 'the sole of a foot'
> > (see Lewis & Short, Neirmeyer, etc.), it is by no means certain that
> > the name Plantapilosa was intended to mean 'hairy shoot' rather than
> > 'hairy foot'.
>
> While I have every respect for pragmatic politeness, the 'shoot' meaning
> of planta is generally more salient than the 'sole of foot' meaning.
> Both meanings can be related loosely to primitive beliefs about mythic
> origins from the land. A sense 'hairy paws' is a possible interpretation
> and it is not surprising that this attracts more polite discussion than
> 'hairy shoot'. However, this does not detract from the salience of the
> 'shoot for propagation' meaning. The "Creation is Birth" metaphor is
> accepted as a timeless standard metaphor [Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors
> We Live By (1980), pp. 74-75.] as so also is the "People are Plants"
> metaphor [Lakoff and Turner, Beyond Cool Reason (1989), pp. 6 and
> 12-14.]. By standard cognitive metaphor theory, Plantapilosa is an image
> metaphor for a gallant man.

I am not sure I understand your reliance on 'metaphor' as weighting your
choice of meaning for this name, nor do I understand your use of
'politeness' here in attempting to rationalize (and counter) others'
opinions that 'hairy foot' is perhaps the more likely meaning.

> > > Plantebene - pleasant shoot
> > > Plantefolie - wickedness shoot
> > > Planterose - risen shoot
> >
> > Reaney & Wilson (Dictionary of English Surnames, 3d rev. ed.) gloss
> > 'plantebene' as a Middle English name given to a cultivator of beans,
> > and 'planterose' for a cultivator of roses; more generally, 'plant' or
> > 'plante-' names are said by them to derive from the obvious
> > occupational origin rather than any sort of metaphorically charged
> > epithet. Must we take the zebra over the horse in these cases?
>
> In 13th century England, there is more evidence for the name Plantefolie
> than either Plantebene (rare) or Planterose (mainly French). Presumably,
> it was for reasons of politeness that Reaney (1st edition, 1958) omitted
> Plantefolie but this omission significantly distorts the deliberations.

Again the politeness. What do you mean? And, can you point to evidence
of frequency of 'plantefolie'? Finally, can you show why we should not
interpret 'plantefolie' as a botanical - occupational name either?

> Also, a study of the Middle English Dictionary (and other dictionaries)
> shows that it is not at all clear that the "bean" meaning of bene was
> salient.

I do not understand your use of 'salient' either. I think you are
trying to say something like "it is not at all clear that 'bene' meant
'bean' here." I suppose that's true, but you need to show how looking
at a dictionary has weakened this apparently obvious element. The OED,
certainly, shows abundant Middle English instances of the spelling
'bene' for the modern 'bean': indeed it appears to have been the modal
spelling (disregarding the declined plural 'benen', etc.). The burden
of proof is on showing why this name ought to mean something other than
'planter of beans or seeds'.

> > But shouldn't you consider the simpler, occupational explanation for
> > names of the form 'plant' or 'plante-___' used by lesser individuals
> > in later medieval England?
>
> The main thrust of my Nomina paper is to discredit the occupational
> explanation for Plant and related names.

It is obvious that that is your main thrust. I am wary, though, of
circular reasoning or poor use of onomastic sources, which one often
sees in arguments which counter the conventional wisdom on a particular
surname. I want to make sure I don't see these failings in this
particular case.

> It should be realised that Reaney was going against previous opinion
> when he proposed that Plant was a metonym for a gardener. Indeed the
> prolific surname Plant has been ascribed a different meaning each time
> an authority has written about it. M.A.Lower (1860) said that it was a
> corruption of Plantagenet. Ernest Weekly (1916) suggested 'from the
> plantation' or 'sprig' or 'cudgel' or 'young offspring'. Reaney (1958)
> proposed the occupational meaning 'gardener'. Hanks and Hodges (1988)
> added the opinion 'a tender or delicate individual'.

These various offerings don't detract from Reaney's guess, which still
seems sensible given the forms planterose, plantebene, and plantefolie
present in the 13th c. I would reject Lower out of hand here, but
realize that the others' propositions are worth considering.

> The only meaning of
> plant, albeit archaic, in the Oxford English Dictionary that fits
> directly as a surname is the noun(1) sense 1(c) which is a 'young
> person' (cf. the metaphorical mapping of 'offshoot' to 'offspring' and
> the Welsh meaning 'children' of plant).

I'm not sure what you mean about "the only meaning of plant ... that
fits directly as a surname." The principle of metonymy means that the
name needn't originate as a noun at all, but rather comes into use by
the association of one word with another--in this case, the verb 'to
plant', often taking a specific direct object (plantrose, plantbene),
being used for the person who does the action.

> It seems likely that Reaney dismissed the most obvious meaning
> 'offspring'.

By what logic is it 'the most obvious meaning'?

> ... because the Plant name is widespread from the earliest
> times.

The is an important assertion of fact. What is the evidence for Plant's
early and wide proliferation (compared to other surnames deriving from
Middle English speech, 12th-13th centuries)? And why could not Reaney
have chosen 'offspring' or 'shoot' in that sense, for its meaning, if he
thought it a widespread name?

> However, my recent Y-DNA evidence shows that Plant is a
> "single-ancestor" prolific surname despite that.

> Presumably Reaney was
> convinced that an occuptional meaning had to be invented to explain such
> a widespread name - this despite the existance of many names of
> relationship such as Child, Children, Sone, Dauter, Vaughan. However,
> the DNA evidence shows that (false paternity events aside) the Plants
> are indeed the offspring of a single ancestor.

What you report of the Y-DNA evidence is also extremely interesting.
But even if all current Plants can be shown to derive from a single
ancestor, that does not necessarily alter our choice for the meaning of
the name. Occupational surnames may generate many contemporaneous
distinct agnate surname origins, but the do not HAVE to; similarly, a
name which appears to have many distinct genetic origin points may be
likely to be an occupational name which was in widespread use, but not
necessarily. Specifically, might 'Plant' have arisen as a rare
occupational name, which then only survived as a name for descendants of
a single person?

> This meaning for Plant relates to the 'shoot' or 'offshoot'
> manifestation of the more general "People are Plants" metataphor. The
> 'shoot' sense relates to a qualia role of function while the 'offshoot'
> sense relates to a qualia role of origins. For the active Plantagenets
> the noble "function" sense of 'scion' or 'establisher shoot' seems most
> appropriate whilst for lesser mortals, such as Plants, a passive
> "origins" sense of 'offshoot' or 'offspring' seems most appropriate.

I think these ideas are intriguing, but I admit I still see no good
systematic argument for preferring any other etymology over Reaney's.
The DNA evidence about current holders of the name, combined with
compiled evidence of the distribution and use of the 'Plant' surname and
compounds in medieval sources, would be a welcome body of evidence to
examine. But I think it does not in itself force us to prefer, by way
of etymological explanation, a metaphorical name-origin over the more
concrete one suggested by Reaney.

Nat Taylor

a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/

my children's 17th-century American immigrant ancestors:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/immigrantsa.htm

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