Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2009, Blaðsíða 134

132
Helgi Skúli Kjartansson
word (presumably spindegal?) appears to be found in Danish. The informal spinnegal cor-
responds to bandóður ‘craz/ in the more formal language, a compound made from the sub-
stantive band ‘rope’ and the adjective óður ‘crazy’, referring the need to tie someone who
has gone crazy. The Icelandic bandóður has its counterpart in Danish bindegal ‘crazy’, a
compound made from the verb binde ‘bind’ and the adjectivega/ ‘crazy’. The matching sem-
antics and similar phonetic structure suggest the Danish adjective bindegal could be the
source of Icelandic spinnegal, where the first member binde- /binne/ has been identified
with Icelandic spinna ‘spin, whirl’ through popular etymology: ‘spinning like crazy’.
Helgi Skúli Kjartansson
Menntavísindasviði
Hdskóla Islands
Stakkahlíð
IS-ioj Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
helgisk@hi.is