One of my favorite phrases is “Q.E.D.” It means:
which was to be shown or demonstrated (used esp. in mathematical proofs).
1810–20; < L quod erat dēmōnstrandum
QED. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/QED (accessed: November 16, 2009).
Here is the history of the letter h:
the pronunciation “aitch” was in O.Fr. (ache), and is from a presumed L.L. *accha (cf. It. effe, elle, emme), with the central sound approximating the value of the letter when it passed from Roman to Germanic, where it at first represented a strong, distinctly aspirated -kh- sound close to that in Scottish loch. In earlier L. the letter was called ha. In Romance languages, the sound became silent in L.L. and was omitted in O.Fr. and It., but it was restored in M.E. spelling in words borrowed from O.Fr., and often later in pronunciation, too. Thus Mod.Eng. has words ultimately from L. with missing -h- (e.g. able, from L. habile); with a silent -h- (e.g. heir, hour); with a formerly silent -h- now vocalized (e.g. humble, honor); and even a few with an excrescent -h- fitted in confusion to words that never had one (e.g. hostage, hermit). Relics of the formerly unvoiced -h- persist in pedantic insistence on an historical (object) and in obs. mine host. The use in digraphs (e.g. -sh-, -th-) goes back to the ancient Gk. alphabet, which used it in -ph-, -th-, -kh- until -H- took on the value of a long “e” and the digraphs acquired their own characters. The letter passed into Roman use before this evolution, and thus retained there more of its original Sem. value.
ha. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ha (accessed: October 01, 2009).
Etymology is fascinating. And it helps in reading, and on the SAT and ACT. It makes you familiar with roots, suffixes, and prefixes, and gives you stories to help remember the meanings of words. Stories satisfy the mind’s need for integration.
Dictionary.com says of the word “arrive:”
1205, from O.Fr. ariver “to come to land,” from V.L. *arripare “to touch the shore,” from L. ad ripam “to the shore,” from ad “to” + ripa “shore,” with an original meaning of coming ashore after a long voyage. Sense of “to come to a position or state of mind” is from 1393.
Arrive. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. (c) Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Arrive (accessed: September 27, 2009).
I love etymology…
The Online Etymology Dictionary says of:
1. Airplane
1907, from air (1) + plane; though the original references are British, the word caught on in Amer.Eng., where it largely superseded earlier aeroplane (1873, and still common in British Eng.; q.v.). © November 2001 Douglas Harper
2. Air
c.1300, “invisible gases that make up the atmosphere,” from O.Fr. air, from L. ærem (nom. ær), from Gk. aer (gen. æros) “air” (related to aenai “to blow, breathe”), of unknown origin, possibly from a base *awer- and thus related to aeirein “to raise” and arteria “windpipe, artery” (see aorta), on notion of “lifting, that which rises.” © November 2001 Douglas Harper
3. Plane
“flat surface,” 1604, from L. plantum “flat surface,” properly neut. of adj. planus “flat, level, plain, clear,” from PIE *pla-no- (cf. Lith. plonas “thin;” Celtic *lanon “plain;” perhaps also Gk. pelanos “sacrificial cake, a mixture offered to the gods, offering (of meal, honey, and oil) poured or spread”), suffixed form of base *pele- “to spread out, broad, flat” (cf. O.C.S. polje “flat land, field,” Rus. polyi “open;” O.E., O.H.G. feld, M.Du. veld “field”). Fig. sense is attested from 1850. The verb meaning “soar, glide on motionless wings” is first recorded 1611, from M.Fr. planer (16c.), from L. planum on notion of bird gliding with flattened wings. Of boats, etc., “to skim over the surface of water” it is first found 1913. © November 2001 Douglas Harper
At Answers.com they say:
n.
1. An inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence.
2. A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it.
[Latin nōn sequitur, it does not follow : nōn, not + sequitur, third person sing. present tense of sequī, to follow.]The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Yup. Knew that. But I am surprised to learn after all these years that I was spelling it wrong!! I had thought that it ended with an “-or”!!
From something I read:
After all this time, [University So-And-So], surprisingly was able to produce at least ONE courageous man who has the obesity to remind the confused and numb headed [citizens] the long forgotten [structure and theory of government]. Please, somebody stop the co-dependent and the irresponsible masses from rendering MY rights, selling my sole to the Satan and empowering this government.
Obesity? Rendered? Sole? Know how the language you are writing in works, know the meaning of the words you use, or else you will say something that is ludicrous!
Laughable or hilarious because of obvious absurdity or incongruity.
“ludicrous.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 07 Aug. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ludicrous>.
2. Ludicrous Word Origin & History
1619, “pertaining to play or sport,” from L. ludicrus, from ludicrum “source of amusement, joke,” from ludere “to play,” which, with L. ludus “a game, play,” may be from Etruscan, or from a PIE base *leid- “to play.” Sense of “ridiculous” is attested from 1782.
“ludicrous.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 07 Aug. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ludicrous>.
Wikipedia says:
Pons Asinorum (Latin for “Bridge of Asses”) is the name given to Euclid’s fifth proposition in Book 1 of his Elements of geometry, the theorem on isosceles triangles:
In isosceles triangles the angles at the base are equal, and, if the equal straight lines are produced further, then the angles under the base are also equal.
One hypothesis as to why the theorem is called the Pons Asinorum is that it separated the “intelligent” from the “fools,” who could not grasp the theorem. Answers.com says of the term Pons Asinorum:
The bridge of asses. Traditionally it is hard to get asses to cross a bridge. In mathematics, the term is applied to the problem from the first book of Euclid that if two sides of a triangle are equal then the angles opposite those sides are also equal. Syllogistic logic had its own pons asinorum: the inventio medii.
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright the Oxford University Press, 1994, 1996, 2005. Answers.com 13 May. 2009.
about which latter Answers.com says:
(Latin, the finding of the middle) In traditional logic, a name for a method invented by Petrus Tartaretus around 1480, by which the middle term of a syllogism can be found. It has sometimes been called the pons asinorum or bridge of asses of logic.
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright the Oxford University Press, 1994, 1996, 2005. Answers.com 13 May. 2009.
But the great historian of mathematics Sir Thomas Heath gave an alternative explanation of the meaning of the term (also from Wikipedia):
“But there is another view (as I have learnt lately) which is more complimentary to the ass. It is that, the figure of the proposition being like that of a trestle–bridge, with a ramp at each end which is more practicable the flatter the figure is drawn, the bridge is such that, while a horse could not surmount the ramp, an ass could; in other words, the term is meant to refer to the surefootedness of the ass rather than to any want of intelligence on his part.” (in “Excursis II,” volume 1 of Heath’s translation of The Thirteen Books of the Elements.)
A search on Dictionary.com turns up:
Part of Speech: n, adj
Definition: beyond one’s knowledge or province; pertaining to opinions given on matters beyond one’s knowledge; also written ultra-crepidarian
Etymology: from Latin ‘beyond the sole’
A good explanation of the word’s etymology is this, from Michael Quinion‘s World WIde Words:
Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion. The Latin writer Pliny recorded that Apelles, the famous Greek painter who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, would put his pictures where the public could see them and then stand out of sight so he could listen to their comments. A shoemaker once faulted the painter for a sandal with one loop too few, which Apelles corrected. The shoemaker, emboldened by this acceptance of his views, then criticised the subject’s leg. To this Apelles is reported as replying (no doubt with expletives deleted) that the shoemaker should not judge beyond his sandals, in other words that critics should only comment on matters they know something about. In modern English, we might say “the cobbler should stick to his last”, a proverb that comes from the same incident. (A last is a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning to follow a track, hence footstep.)
Read the rest!
I received these in an email from family. I don’t know who thought of these, but they are clever.
1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was –
–Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, –
–but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian .
3. She was only a whisky maker, –
–but he loved her still.
There is an interesting site on the Internet — SaveTheWords.org — that has a collection of obsolete or going-extinct words: antipelargy, sparsile, sagittipotent, xenization, prandicle…
Nice.
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