Author Topic: The random etymology of the day (Read 237865 times)

pooka · « **Reply #125 on:** February 02, 2006, 01:30:48 PM »

Remember at EnderCon when OSC was going to read Polish Boy and he joked about people saying it was Polish Boy and then he couldn't remember the word for homograph? I honestly don't know if I ever heard of homographs before that point.

Jonathon · « **Reply #126 on:** February 06, 2006, 12:14:00 PM »

Some cognates that don't look like cognates:

come, v.

venir, v. (French)

From Proto-Indo-European *gwem-, *gwm-. In the Germanic branch, /g/ > /k/, giving *kweman or *kuman. The English word comes from the second stem, which in Old English appeared as cuman. The letter o comes from scribal use before m or n to avoid misreading.

In Old Latin, the PIE sound /gw/ simplified to /w/. In Vulgate Latin, this became the /v/ sound that remains today. I'm not sure what caused the /m/ to change to /n/, but this isn't a big issue; nasals frequently change place of articulation.

quick, a., n., and adv.

vivant, p. ppl. (French)

bios, n. (Greek)

The same sound changes applied here. The PIE word was *gwiwo-, which became vivus in Latin and *kwiwoz in Proto-Germanic. The origin of the second /k/ is unclear; Gothic didn't have it, but all the Northern and Western Germanic languages do. I'd guess it was influenced by the first /kw/. (The English sense was originally "living," as in "the quick and the dead.")

In Greek, the /gw/ sound became /b/. This sounds really bizarre, but it's fairly common. The /g/ is a voiced velar stop (back of the tongue against the soft palate), and the /w/ is a labiovelar glide (lips rounded and back of tongue raised). We oten get ready to start making the next sound before we've stopped making the current one. Speakers stop using the back of their tongue to make the stop and start using the lips instead. Then the /b/ and /w/ simply merge and leave only the /b/.

Porter · « **Reply #127 on:** February 06, 2006, 12:18:43 PM »

That's weird.

Brinestone · « **Reply #128 on:** February 06, 2006, 01:09:01 PM »

Quite.

Or shall I say, "vit"?

Have you done the words for 5 yet?

Jonathon · « **Reply #129 on:** February 06, 2006, 01:17:12 PM »

Yes, on a different thread a while back.

pooka · « **Reply #130 on:** February 06, 2006, 04:45:38 PM »

Today my brother was asking about ordinance and ordnance. He thinks they are closely related, but I don't, since ordinance is a derivative of ordain (like provide >>providence). Also, he pointed out that it is a self-plural, like "deer" Okay, I guess I'll go look it up.

[Middle English ordnaunce, variant of ordinaunce, order, military provision. See ordinance.]

Okay, so they come from the same word, but they were never the same word that just got changed through pronunciation and spelling variations, as he was thinking.

I'm beginning to think that if you go back far enough, all words are related

How disappointing.

Jonathon · « **Reply #131 on:** February 06, 2006, 04:53:06 PM »

That's right. They all originated from the same primordial grunt.

Porter · « **Reply #132 on:** February 06, 2006, 04:54:12 PM »

Huh?

Jonathon · « **Reply #133 on:** February 06, 2006, 05:27:19 PM »

I'm confused about your confusion.

Porter · « **Reply #134 on:** February 06, 2006, 06:43:32 PM »

I was just show an example of a primodial grunt.

pooka · « **Reply #135 on:** February 09, 2006, 09:56:07 PM »

Your agreement error amuses me. :devil:

Jonathon · « **Reply #136 on:** February 09, 2006, 10:06:18 PM »

Jonathon · « **Reply #137 on:** February 14, 2006, 11:06:20 AM »

hydro-

From the Greek

? (hydro), combining form of

? (hydor) 'water,' from the Proto-Indo-European *wodor/*wedor/*uder-, from the root *wed. The Greek appears to have come from the *uder form, while the English descends from *wod. The Latin undulate comes from the Latin root unda 'wave,' which comes from the same root as hydro. The Russian vodka 'little water' comes from the same root as the English water.

(Those Greek accents are probably wrong, but it was the best I could do.)

pooka · « **Reply #138 on:** February 15, 2006, 03:01:09 PM »

I'm having a dihydrous monoxide flashback.

Jonathon · « **Reply #139 on:** February 22, 2006, 12:09:38 PM »

Some verb/noun pairs from Old English:

bake/batch

wake/watch

make/match

speak/speech

stick/stitch

In each of these pairs, the noun form had a front vowel in the suffix, which caused the preceding [k] to palatalize. Obviously some of the senses have diverged quite a bit in the last thousand or so years, and some of the verbs have become nouns and vice versa.

pooka · « **Reply #140 on:** February 22, 2006, 07:47:56 PM »

Wicked. I've wondered a lot about the relationship between treason and betray and traitor. Did we do this already?

Now that matchmaker song sounds kind of dumb.

sarcasticmuppet · « **Reply #141 on:** February 28, 2006, 09:43:30 AM »

I have a question -- Does the word "crux" have any relation to "cross" or "crucifix"?

Jonathon · « **Reply #142 on:** February 28, 2006, 10:53:51 AM »

Yup. Crux is the original Latin form. Cross is a version that was borrowed into Old Irish, then into Old Norse, and then into Old English. Crucify comes from the Late Latin crucifigere, meaning "to fix to a cross."

saxon75 · « **Reply #143 on:** February 28, 2006, 02:09:44 PM »

Isn't there also a connection to the Latin cruciare?

Porter · « **Reply #144 on:** February 28, 2006, 02:11:28 PM »

NOO00oo!! Not the unforgivable curse!

saxon75 · « **Reply #145 on:** February 28, 2006, 02:15:20 PM »

Dude, that's with an -o, not an -are.

Porter · « **Reply #146 on:** February 28, 2006, 02:16:37 PM »

It's a perfectly cromulent regional variation.

Jonathon · « **Reply #147 on:** February 28, 2006, 04:40:24 PM »

Maybe crucio is simply the first-person singular present indicative conjugation.

But anyway, you are correct, Saxon. That's the verb form. It turns up in the English verb excruciate.

saxon75 · « **Reply #148 on:** February 28, 2006, 05:20:27 PM »

You know, I don't think magic words conjugate. At least, they don't retain their power if conjugated.

Jonathon · « **Reply #149 on:** February 28, 2006, 05:22:55 PM »

What, are you the Minister of Magic now, too?