Hello
I'm a new subscriber. I teach English in NZ. Do you know where that is? (Just checking he he!)
My question:

do you think these words are related:

generation
gene etc
genocide
genetic
generator
Genesis
genital

??

Also, for people who read French: a very interesting book about "the love affair between the English & French languages" : Honni soit qui mal y pense.
Written by a very nice French lady, Henriette Walters.
Jeanette

Welcome, Nettie!

In reply to:

---

do you think these words are related

---

Yes.

Best regards,
WW, who usually doesn't give smart-A answers to questions, but I couldn't resist this time!

Welcome aBoard, Jeanette. I am delighted that another Zilder has joined us (no, I'm not one, but I sure have a high opinion of the ones I've come to know here)! I'd like to try reading that book some time, though I expect I've forgotten too much French to really take it in.

Welcome nettie01. I found a good link on the Indo-European roots of words containing gen.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE143.html

The entry itself doesn't copy and paste well, but here's the meat and potatoes of it:

ENTRY:gen

DEFINITION:Also gen-. To give birth, beget; with derivatives referring to aspects and results of procreation and to familial and tribal groups. Oldest form *gen 1-, becoming *gen 1- in centum languages.

Reading about the etymology of words always makes me wonder about the early people that first came up with these sounds to denote things. Did they evolve from grunts and hoots, or was there some divine intervention? If those early people could see us now, would they be amazed at how some arbitrary choice for a word is still in use in some form today? Ah, but I ramble. It's late. Time for bed...

Alex, you've never heard of the Ding Dong Theory and the Bow Wow Theory of language? As is obvious from the names, these related theories posit that many words (or nouns, at least) came into being from the sounds which things make. Of course, this doesn't account for hippopotamus .

Thanks for that Alex.

And a nonsequitur:
"Gen - Gen means information. If you have the gen then you know what is going on. "

Kia ora, Nettie, kei te pehea koe? It's lovely to have another person from the non-penal side of the Tasman join us. My presence here is somewhat illusory at present, so until I'm back for real, enjoy yourself, and stick around. Noho ora mai.

Hi Nettie01 (there are more of you?). I, too, hail from Helengrad. Welcome to our somewhat battered sanctuary. What part of the country do you inhabit?

Gen means information

Isn't that from "General Knowledge", Bill? In which case it would be a sequitur.


Welcome to Godzone's fourth* island, nettie!

(I knew we shouldn't have left those two together.)


* I'm including Stewart Island, but discounting anything smaller.

Welcome, welcome!
Do stick around. You'll find us all a bit batty now and then,but basically good hearted. Hang in with us.

Fourth island? What you on, Shona?

Thank you for your replies and messages and advice.
Maori even! on this list.
Ka kite ano! (see you later)
Jeanette

virtual islands i think... stewart island is a virtual island... and Kiwi might even be another... and eventually NZ might be an archipeligo at least a virtual one, with some of its geography here

Fourth island? What you on, Shona?

Another planet, apparently.
Just checked here:
http://nz.com/quiz/quiz.html
and apparently there are 5. How's that then? Counting some of those teeny islands in the north?

There are only three islands worth mentioning. That's the North Island (Te Ika e Maui for those of you with PC genes), the South Island (Te Wai Pounamu, yadda) and Stewart Island (Rakiura, likewise). The rest don't count. Dunno where that quiz got the other two from. Probably from pissing up on Waiheke Island.

WOW, shona, how did you ever find that cool quiz? I scored 6. When I checked my score against others', I learned that an ELVIS GARG scored a perfect 10...
[whine]Now, how the heck was I supposed to know that rugby was THE sport, when all you-all ever talk about are the football teams?[/whine]

There are only three islands worth mentioning

Exactly. And AWADtalk is implicitly defined in my first post as Godzone's fourth island.

Phew. Thought I'd really lost it there.

As if.