Funny English and Linguistics stuff...

[Jonathon]

It comes from French (subtil), and we pronounce it that way. You are weird for not pronouncing letters that are there.

That's strange. The Old French word was soutil or sutil. The b was added back as a silent letter (in both English and French) to make the word look more like Latin, and apparently at some point the French started pronouncing it again.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I like it when the French pronounce the silent Ps. Like pneu. That's the best word ever.

[Porter]

Tire, I assume?

They pronounce the p in that word in Portuguese as well.

[Jonathon]

Tire, I assume?

Si.

[Brinestone]

Another really cool-sounding word is psychology in German. I imagine the French pronunciation is pretty similar: psü-sho-lo-gee (hard G on the last syllable). Except that the vowels are a bit different in German.

[Jonathon]

The French is [psi.kɔ.lɔ.ʒi]. The German is [psy.ço.lo.ˈɡiː]. Aside from some slightly different vowels, the main differences are the palatalization and frication of the <ch> and <g>. It's sort of funny that German has a palatal fricative for the first and a velar stop for the second, while French has an velar stop for the first and an alveopalatal fricative for the second.

[pooka]

I think it's more "why put letters in there you don't want pronounced."

[Tante Shvester]

For extra Scrabble points, duh!

[pooka]

 

[Tante Shvester]

The French have even devised a silent "x".  If that's not cheating at Scrabble, I don't know what is.

[BlackBlade]

So how did a veteran come to mean somebody who is a retired soldier, but a veterinarian is a doctor that treats animals?

Are veterans and veterins different things?

[Jonathon]

They're unrelated. Veteran comes from the Latin vetus, meaning 'old'. Veterinarian comes from the Latin veterīnus, meaning 'pertaining to cattle'.

[BlackBlade]

I learned that to "crack a joke" is derived from the older definition of "cracker", somebody who boasts or makes much ado about something. That's also where we got the phrase, "that's not what it's cracked up to be." But we don't typically use the verb that way outside of those phrases. I kinda want to start.

Cow herders in Florida, since their tradition predates the Western one do not refer to themselves as cowboys. They prefer the term cow hunter. They are also referred to as 'crackers' with no sense of the derogatory feeling behind the word. The word is simply related to the sound of a whip as they herd the cows.

I can't find where the words true origins come from though.

[Jonathon]

4 Copy Editors Killed In Ongoing AP Style, Chicago Manual Gang Violence

[Kristina]

4 Copy Editors Killed In Ongoing AP Style, Chicago Manual Gang Violence

I just came in here to post that!

[pooka]

I think there's a lot of pent up emotion amongst copy editors in Chicago due to all the Tom Raper RV billboards. 

[BlackBlade]

I learned that the word "flag" is of unknown origin, and that perhaps it might be onomatopoeic.

[Jonathon]

That's funny. The OED says it's found in all modern Germanic languages, but it's not recorded before about 1500. I always find it fascinating when a modern word has an obscure origin.

[Tante Shvester]

That's for "flag" the noun and "flag" the verb?  And adjective, I guess, if you are modifying "stone".  None of those meanings seem obviously related to me.

[BlackBlade]

That's funny. The OED says it's found in all modern Germanic languages, but it's not recorded before about 1500. I always find it fascinating when a modern word has an obscure origin.

I was doing some thinking, the Bible's use of "flag" is even more baffling. It appears to mean some sort of water plant.

"And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink."

I wonder if since flag doesn't mean what it means now, and isn't used in the Bible that way, is why in the Book of Mormon Captain Moroni's banner isn't called a flag, it's called a "Title of Liberty".

[Jonathon]

That's for "flag" the noun and "flag" the verb?  And adjective, I guess, if you are modifying "stone".  None of those meanings seem obviously related to me.

It's for the noun meaning a type of banner. All the other flags—the water plant, the verb, the type of stone, and so on—are apparently unrelated.

[rivka]

I was doing some thinking, the Bible's use of "flag" is even more baffling.

*cough*

All the other flags—the water plant, the verb, the type of stone, and so on—are apparently unrelated.

The verb is not derived from the noun?

[Jonathon]

To clarify, I meant the verb meaning "to hang" or "to become unsteady, feeble, or spiritless", as Merriam-Webster defines it. The OED says it's unrelated, but M-W says it's probably from the rectangular banner.

[rivka]

Ah, silly me. Didn't even think of that meaning.

[BlackBlade]

So is it wrong to write for example "I wonder what John is doing." instead of "I wonder what John is doing?"

I feel like the former is correct because I'm not actually asking a question, merely mentioning that I am thinking about that question. But I don't think I've ever read it written as a statement.