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journeyman
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In another thread ( http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=120544"withershins and deasil"), the German "wieder" meaning "again", and "wider" meaning "against" were mentioned. These two words share a common origin, even though the semantic connection is not obvious. The English forms are parallel, but different - "again" and "against" were once interchangeable in use, as for example "among/amongst" or "while/whilst". Both come from the same root as German "gegen" meaning "against". The French have "encore" for "again", which is surely a close relation of Italian "ancora". In turn "ancora" suggests a tempting interpretation of "anche ora": "also now", but another possibility may be something like "(ad) hanc horam" - "(to) this time" (or some other preposition that takes the accusative). None of these are related to "contra", which is the root for "against" in these languages. "Contra" itself is mystifyingly described by the OED as "abl. fem. of a compar from com, cum with", but it looks like it's from "cum" + [some 1st declension noun?]. Latin for "again" is "iterum" which means something like "going over", and is a cousin to English "other". By the way, the French don't shout "encore" to request a repeat performance - they shout "bis", which is Greek. The words "again" and "against" are themselves in use in three non-standard ways in Ireland. First: Meaning "not now/later". A person may say "I'll visit him again" even if they haven't yet done so once! Second: Meaning "before". Example: "You'd better finish your homework agin your father gets back". This one is listed by the OED as an archaic meaning of "against". Archaic it may be, but not extinct! Third: Meaning "in case". Example: "We should buy a fire blanket agin the chip pan goes up".
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Very interesting.
the French don't shout "encore" to request a repeat performance - they shout "bis", which is Greek.
Sorry, but bis is good Latin for 'twice'; cognate with Greek dis, Sanskrit dvis from PIE *dwis.
"Contra" itself is mystifyingly described by the OED as "abl. fem. of a compar from com, cum with", but it looks like it's from "cum" + [some 1st declension noun?].
Prepositions, and other particles, are strange bits of words. The idea of a comparative of a preposition may seem strange, but English has nigh, near, and next and others.
The 't' in against is epenthetic; the form in Middle English was againes. Again from on + gean 'still, again' (cf. German gegen).
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Prepositions are often from adverbs originally, so if 'in' meant 'inward' you could have 'inter'. In Latin especially a lot of the prepositional forms have some sort of comparative element: in-tr-a, in-ter-ior, -nal; ex-tr-a, ex-ter-; ul-tr-a, ul-ter-; prae, prae-ter.
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Similar connections are round with Latin 're-' and English 'with'. 'Re-' means (1) again and (2) back. 'With' originally meant 'against', as in 'withstand', and then replaced 'mid' (German 'mit'), which didn't survive Middle English.
Perhaps the original idea was 'in the opposite direction', and this gave the 'opposed to' sense of words like 'against', and the 'back' sense, and then from changing direction and going back to something you get the 'once more' idea. The later meaning of 'with' would come from things like ladders being with walls, extended to general location.
A look at a Greek dictionary shows their prefixes 'palin-' and 'ana-' seem to have a similar variety of uses.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have something lurking in my JDM® about the modern sense of with coming through the phrase fighting with.
If the t in against is epenthetic, how about the t in amidst and whilst?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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What would you say about "unbeknownst"?
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veteran
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'With' originally meant 'against', as in 'withstand', and then replaced 'mid' (German 'mit'), which didn't survive Middle English.
Both wieder and wider are cognate with with. Mið lost out in English and wid in German. Prepositions and preverbs (or whatever you call the prep-like things that have attached themselves to verbs in IE lgs) are one of the hardest things to learn in a foreign language, mainly I believe because they are the left overish bits after nouns and verbs have been accounted for.
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The suffix -(t)er shows up in different places in the IE lgs. Comparative versus nomen agentis suffix. Is the -ter in father, mother, brother different? or a different use. What about in dexter and sinister. About in-: it can be used in the sense of 'in(side of) / within' something, 'not' something (cf. our un-, and an intensifier as inflammable (cf. re- elsewhere in this thread).
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If the t in against is epenthetic, how about the t in amidst and whilst?
Yep (along with nope, with epenthetic 'p'), both whilst (from whiles) and amidst (from admiddes, cf. mid 'with').
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I'd never really thought of it before, but there are more than a few words ending in this -st, like unbeknownst and amongst. Is it somehow related to the superlative suffix? Or is it a purely phonological development? Thanks Hibernicus for a really fascinating thread.
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