Author Topic: The random etymology of the day (Read 222466 times)

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #500 on:** June 20, 2007, 02:08:49 PM »

Quote

*slaps Tante across the face*

Why you...

[size=8]do it again?[/size]

rivka · « **Reply #501 on:** June 20, 2007, 07:50:04 PM »

Quote

Succinct is the past participle of the Latin succingere, which comes from sub + cingere "to gird." So the verb means "to gird up" and the past participle means "girded up." The sense extended to mean "confined by a girdle" and then "compressed into a small space" and eventually "verbally concise or terse."

So when someone verbs "succinct," it's not as wrong as I thought? Huh.

Jonathon · « **Reply #502 on:** June 20, 2007, 08:18:18 PM »

Oh, no. It's very much wrong.

Succinct was a past participle in Latin, meaning it was a form of a verb used adjectivally. This doesn't mean that you could conjugate it and use it as a full verb in a finite verb clause. The same does not always hold true for English (there are a great many Latin past participles that are full verbs in English today), but succinct has not made that leap.

Just to clarify, though, can you give me an example?

rivka · « **Reply #503 on:** June 20, 2007, 08:39:07 PM »

Sure.

Tired of being chided for rambling, John succincted his explanation.

(Really. And I've seen it used this way more than once. Also, I was joking about it not really being wrong.)

Jonathon · « **Reply #504 on:** June 20, 2007, 08:52:10 PM »

Gah! Seeing it in writing really is as bad as I expected.

Porter · « **Reply #505 on:** June 20, 2007, 09:01:24 PM »

That's an awesome verbing. I like it. But then, I like verbing in general.

Jonathon · « **Reply #506 on:** June 20, 2007, 09:04:12 PM »

Maybe you should say "That verbing awesomes."

Porter · « **Reply #507 on:** June 20, 2007, 10:54:00 PM »

It does.

pooka · « **Reply #508 on:** June 25, 2007, 12:58:30 PM »

I don't come across a new word very often, and the fact that I read this in a talk by President Hinckley raises him a notch in my book. Granted he's supposed to be up there at 2 or 4 depending on how you count, but anyway...

eleemosynary

pooka · « **Reply #509 on:** June 26, 2007, 09:54:07 AM »

Where does "had my six" come from? Six shooter? Six o'clock (coverage from rear?) Those are my guesses.

Porter · « **Reply #510 on:** June 26, 2007, 09:59:51 AM »

Your second guess is correct. It's just like saying he "had my back".

I don't know if anybody really speaks like that, but military folk in movies use terms like that all the time.

"Bogie at three o'clock!"

pooka · « **Reply #511 on:** June 26, 2007, 10:22:29 AM »

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Cortana says "There's a covenant Banshee on your six" right before Fauxhammer (sp?) buys it in The Maw.

Jonathon · « **Reply #512 on:** June 26, 2007, 10:37:28 AM »

You should put that in a Wikipedia article.

Porter · « **Reply #513 on:** June 26, 2007, 10:42:29 AM »

Any wikipedia article.

JT · « **Reply #514 on:** June 26, 2007, 10:55:08 AM »

Every wikipedia article.

And the military books I've read (non-fiction as well as fiction) say that the clock/color system is still very much in use in special-ops ground actions. YMMV.

pooka · « **Reply #515 on:** June 26, 2007, 01:24:58 PM »

Clock/color?

Porter · « **Reply #516 on:** June 26, 2007, 01:30:36 PM »

Color?

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #517 on:** June 28, 2007, 08:32:25 AM »

Egregious, from outside of the herd or flock.

'Nuff said.

Porter · « **Reply #518 on:** June 28, 2007, 09:44:08 AM »

Apparently not enough, because I don't know what you're trying to say.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #519 on:** June 28, 2007, 10:02:46 AM »

I heard someone saying that the use of "'nuff said", which I tend to employ, is particularly egregious.

pooka · « **Reply #520 on:** June 28, 2007, 10:32:21 AM »

"It was ME!"

Jonathon · « **Reply #521 on:** July 15, 2007, 10:27:54 AM »

Just now I was wondering about the name of the letter h. Most of the other letters are pretty straightforward. For consonants it's typically the regular sound plus ee. But aitch is just plain weird.

It probably comes from a Late Latin *accha, with the middle sound about like a Scottish or German ch. But the h sound starting going silent in Vulgar Latin, so people started pronouncing it simply as acca. In Old French the c sound in the middle palatalized to the ch sound of modern English. Then the Great Vowel Shift came along and raised the vowel so we say it aitch instead of atch.

Brinestone · « **Reply #522 on:** July 15, 2007, 04:05:18 PM »

Did you find anything out about cemetery?

Jonathon · « **Reply #523 on:** July 15, 2007, 04:16:15 PM »

It comes from the Latin coemeterium, which comes from the Greek koimeterion, which means "sleeping place" or "dormitory." Not terribly interesting, though the koim- part is apparently related to the English home and German heim.

Brinestone · « **Reply #524 on:** July 15, 2007, 06:53:34 PM »

I liked it. Thanks.