hospitality - Wordsmith.org

Is the word "hospitality" derived from "hospital?"

I do not really know, but would suspect the two share the same root.
Since hospitality represents the kind and warm treatment of guests and that is quite what I expect from a hospital.

Being a fan of malapropism, in my younger days, I recall a radio "character", Bill Corsair, (he could be referred as an 'on-air personality' but he had a lot of "character") in Philadelphia who used "Horse-Pistol" when referring to the hospital.

the two share the same root.
- This is indeed the case: latin hospes (genitive hospitis ) had the meaning of "host" as well as "guest". A hospital thus was primarily a place which put up "guests". The adjective hospitable still reminds us of this fact.

Latin hostis 'stranger. enemy', hospes 'host, guest, stranger' (from *hosti-pot- 'master of guests'; cf. Sanskrit ganapati one of the bynames of Ganesha and like that name meaning 'Lord of Categories') are related to Greek xenos 'stranger', German Gast, Russian gospod 'lord' :- all from PIE root *ghos-ti- 'stranger, guest, host'. Calvert Watkins has a paper on how the original meaning was more along the lines of 'strangers who have a reciprical (guest, non-familial) relationship with one another'. The Hebrew-Aramaic word 'ushpizin '(holy) guests' is from the Greek hospetion from Latin hospitium 'inn', and the London placename, Spitalfields is from 'hospital fields'.

Ooh! hostis 'stranger. enemy' Hostile!
xenos 'stranger' Xenophobia!

I had to read up on Ganesha. Quite wonderful, really.
I trust this site's information, but be warned there are ads.*
about.com

*They had an ad from an online airfare site...and it was proposing that I look for fares to and from where I live to a city I've booked flights for before. How did they know? I can't believe it was coincidence.

> They had an ad from an online airfare site...and it was proposing that I look for fares to and from where I live to a city I've booked flights for before. How did they know? I can't believe it was coincidence.

cookies.

Thanks; but...

That's actually kind of scary.

Quote:

Thanks; but... That's actually kind of scary.

relax J, it's only Big Brother.

Quote:

> They had an ad from an online airfare site...and it was proposing that I look for fares to and from where I live to a city I've booked flights for before. How did they know? I can't believe it was coincidence.

cookies.

The "from" part is even easier than that since the site has to have your IP address so (unless you use some sort of proxy) they can easily look up where your ISP is. Even if you have a national ISP, they use specific IP ranges in specific markets. The "to" could just be a coincidence unless you travel to odd places.