The random etymology of the day

[Jonathon]

I just learned that some of the higher power-of-ten prefixes (everything past tera-) are loosely based on Latin and Greek numerals. Tera- comes from the Greek word teras, meaning "monster," but it bears a resemblance to the Greek word for "four," tetra, which is coincidental because tera- is used to mean "trillion," which is 1000 to the fourth power. All the higher prefixes are then modeled on Latin or Greek.

peta = penta (Greek)
exa = hex (Greek)
zetta = septem (Latin)
yotta = okto/octo (Greek/Latin)

And if anyone's curious, giga comes from the Greek for "giant," mega comes from the Greek for "great," and everything below that (kilo to deca) comes straight from the numbers they represent.

[Jonathon]

I suppose I should do the negative powers of ten, too.

The positive powers up to 10^3 come from Greek. The negative ones down to 10^–3 come from Latin. Then comes micro-, from the Greek for "small." Nano- comes from the Greek nanos meaning "dwarf." Pico- is from the Italian piccolo meaning "small." Femto- is from the Danish or Norwegian word femten, meaning "fifteen," because it represents 10^–15. Atto- is from the Danish atten, meaning "eighteen." Zepto- is from the Latin septem, meaning "seven," because it's 1000^–7. And finally there's yocto, from the Greek okto meaning "eight," because it's 1000^–8.

I always wondered what the system was past the first few. I guess now I know that it's fairly haphazard.

[Porter]

This is why scientific notation is so awesome.

[goofy]

I just discovered that a lot of number words are derived from the word for "ten". PIE *de?m meant "ten" and gives us "ten", the "teen" in "thirteen" etc, and Latin "decem" and Greek "deka".

*de?m reduced to *d?mt-ih?, and with the prefix *wih?- meaning "in half, two" became *wih??mtih?- becoming Latin viginta "twenty".

*de?m reduced to *d?mt-om becoming Proto-Germanic *hundam, then "hundred".

Proto-Germanic *þ?s-hundi meant "swollen hundred", becoming "thousand".

*d?mt-om apparently became Latin centum and Greek hekaton "hundred".

"twenty" is perhaps from *twa plus *de?m, ie "twice ten".

"twelve" is from Proto-Germanic *twa-lif- meaning "two left (beyond ten)". "eleven" is from *ain-lif- meaning "one left (beyond ten)".

[Porter]

Goofy's post goes to eleven.

[Jonathon]

I just learned from Languagehat that brimstone came from the Old English brynstán, which literally meant "burn-stone." The change from n to m was probably influenced by the adjective brim, meaning "fierce."

[Farmgirl]

My son wants to know if the word applaud  comes from the words applies and laud, since that kinda makes sense.

[Jonathon]

Like, a portmanteau of those two words? Portmanteaus are a relatively modern phenomenon, I think (much like acronyms). Applaud comes to us straight from Latin and is composed of the roots ad- 'to' + plaudere 'to clap'. There doesn't appear to be any connection to laud.

[Farmgirl]

Thanks!

[Porter]

Like, a portmanteau of those two words? Portmanteaus are a relatively modern phenomenon, I think (much like acronyms).

Following your link, it appears that portmanteau is portmanteau from the 16th century.

[Jonathon]

*checks*

No, it looks like it's just a regular old compound. Porte is a stem, which is what's normally used in compounds. Contrast that with words like brunch and smog, where the stems are broken in half.

[Porter]

Ah.  Gotcha.

[rivka]

Like, a portmanteau of those two words? Portmanteaus are a relatively modern phenomenon, I think (much like acronyms).

What do you mean by "relatively modern"? Lewis Carroll coined a bunch of them, didn't he?

[Jonathon]

Yup. I guess I meant something like "the last century or two." Words like chortle and brunch and smog began entering the English language in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Applaud entered the English language in the 1400s—and, of course, it has a long history in French and Latin before that.  

[Jonathon]

The verb learn has long been used to mean "teach" (the usage goes back to at least 1200), and though now it's regarded as an error and generally confined to certain dialects, it has a legitimate etymological reason for existence.

In Old English they were two verbs, and they started to collapse together in Middle English. On the one hand there was leornian, which had the "learn" meaning. Then there was the related word læran, which had the "teach" meaning. They're also related to the word lore, which means "the act of teaching" or "that which is taught."

But leornian and læran didn't exactly collapse together. When word endings started disappearing in Middle English, the usual course of action was to drop the -an/-ian on verbs, which created the forms learn ("learn") and lere ("teach"). The word lere survived until the 1600s or so, but it's obsolete now. But as those suffixes were decaying and withering away, there was probably some confusion, and people started using learn to mean lere.

This error caught on and became standard English for hundreds of years until it started to fall out of favor in the late 1700s and eventually became branded as an error.

[Porter]

That'll learn me.

[The Genuine]

I am totally quoting that back to my boss the next time he purports to teach me something about the law I didn't already know.

[The Genuine]

And I'm inserting that Shatner poster pic too.

[Jonathon]

I just (re)learned that the word amateur literally means "lover" in French. The change in meaning goes something like "someone who loves something" to "someone who loves something and does it as a hobby" and then picks up some senses like "novice" or "dabbler."

[Porter]

When did it pick up the meaning of "one who is not paid"?

[Jonathon]

The first citation in the OED is from 1786. This is only two years after the original "someone who loves something" sense, so I'm guessing that these meanings developed in French first and that the word with its multiple senses was borrowed into English. It appears to have started picking up a disparaging sense within a couple decades.

[Porter]

I know that during 1800s, being an amateur was  mark of pride among the upper classes.

There was an amateur football (or was it cricket?)  team in England that frequently beat the professional teams it played against.  The amateur team was made up of upper crust gentlemen, while the professional teams largely consisted of middle to lower class folk.

[Zalmoxis]

Being an amateur means that you can afford to dabble.

<----dabbler without a trust fund  

[Jonathon]

Thanks to Language Hat, I just learned that surly comes from sirly (which is now obsolete), meaning basically "lordly."

[Annie Subjunctive]

Thanks to inner-office curiosity and the internet, I just learned that mess in the sense of something untidy comes from the very same mess that meant an individual portion of dinner and that we still use in mess hall and mess-kit. I always assumed it was the other way around.