Root Words / Word Meanings - Ever blow your mind?

[SlitheryDee]

Yes, that's it. I'd actually edited my post with the link on Amazon as I found it.

Hmm. I don't see a kindle edition. I was really interested too. Maybe I'll buy it anyway.

Thanks for the find in any case.

 

[Craig234]

Hmm. I don't see a kindle edition. I was really interested too. Maybe I'll buy it anyway.

Thanks for the find in any case.

Sure, very welcome. Don't get your hopes up too much - I more like the idea than a lot of the actual words the author identified, but I think it's a neat idea. I still like it.

 

[Jeff7]

Frequency is simply "how often a repeating thing happens per unit of time."
# of events per unit of time.
Commonly measured in Hertz = # of events per second.

Period.

It's a property of electromagnetic waves, the rate at which a piston fires in a car engine, sound waves....anything with something that happens over and over.



I just like word roots when it helps figure out some aspect of the word's meaning.

Example: A plant genus, pachyphytum. Pachy - "Ok, that's probably something in common with elephants."
Pachy = thick, or large
Pachyderm = thick skin

Pachyphytum --> thick plant


It's nice when there's at least some part of a language that sort of makes a little bit of something resembling sense.


(Sort of - it's based on Greek words, possibly with some Latin swirled in, and spelled incorrectly. If our language was alive, it would try to beg for death, but its hideous, partially-undead gurgles would be incomprehensible.)

Horror - horrible - horrific

Terror - terrible - terrific?

:thumbsup:


Flammable = Inflammable
Nonflammable --> Noninflammable?

Inflamed = Either it's on fire, or it's swollen

Calculus = High-level math, or an abnormal mineral deposit in your body

Lumen = A measure of light emitted by something, or the internal cavity of a tube in the body, such as an artery

Electron spin = A property of electrons that has nothing to do with spinning



I'll go back on my previous statement - if the language was assembled into a life form, it would be a large middle finger.

 

[Auric]

English only seems bad if thinking language should merely facilitate basic communication rather than literature enriched by the complexity and thus infinite subtlety.

 

[Jeff7]

English only seems bad if thinking language should merely facilitate basic communication rather than literature enriched by the complexity and thus infinite subtlety.

I'm quite sure that, even with a language meant "merely" to facilitate communication, there would still remain an immense amount of latitude for artistic exploration.

 

[splat_ed]

English - full of strangeness... A few I've found amusing
We fill out a form by filling it in.
Why are somethings only in the negative? Where are the strapful dresses? The man who would hurt a fly?

And then look a the "ough" sounds - bough, tough, thorough, through, lough, hiccough (and more!)

 

[tynopik]

The other day I learned the word cuckold is derived from the female cuckoo bird and their habit of having many mates.

no

 

[zinfamous]

I'm quite sure that, even with a language meant "merely" to facilitate communication, there would still remain an immense amount of latitude for artistic exploration.

Well, with Ithkuil, an apparently "perfect language" with no room for indirect meaning, subtleties, and even deceit, there is no such latitude.

Hell, even its creator can't speak it.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/12/24/121224fa_fact_foer

(that's a really cool article, by the way. It's worth reading until the end due to a somewhat bizarre turn...)

 

[zinfamous]

no

well, current knowledge is somewhat irrelevant if the actual word origin is true. If the initial observation was thus, and whether or not is factual, it doesn't change the derivation of the word.

Funny, most people still think Lemmings commit suicide on a regular cycle...and this entire belief is based on one single observation by one man, who happened to witness an extremely rare phenomenon and whose single, short description of that one event provides the foundation for generations of false assumptions about this animal.

 

[tynopik]

well, current knowledge is somewhat irrelevant if the actual word origin is true.

but that's not the actual word origin

it's from cuckoos being brood parasites, ie they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and let the other birds raise them

hence a man who has been cuckolded has been tricked into raising a kid who is not his own

 

[Auric]

I'm quite sure that, even with a language meant "merely" to facilitate communication, there would still remain an immense amount of latitude for artistic exploration.

Since language does not necessarily imply writing, such are nonstarters against those which do. Amongst the rest, whither examples comparable to Shakespeare?