On Wed, 11 Dec 2002 14:04:58 GMT, "Michelle Fulton"
wrote:


"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
.. .

has introgressed English to become 'floe', meaning sea ice.

I knew that! smacks self in head

You may know it from the expression 'go with the floe'. It would be
understandable if an English tongued person associate this to flow,
like going with the flow of water, but that is not the original
meaning of the expression. Floe and flow are in the origin
completely different concepts, going with the floe means going with
the ice.

An English tongued person might yield to associations from floe
to flee/fly/fled/flight, particularly when he is in a belligerent
state of mind, but again, flee/fly is an altogether different concept
than floe.

The two concepts 'floe' and 'flaw', otoh, come from the same origin,
which probably few English would connect, in whatever mood. The
original concept of both is one of a flat piece, a 'flake', cracked
off something. This concept was carried over to human character, a
flake ~flaw in character, and later on to broken things generally.
'Flake' itself is of course of the same root as floe and flaw.