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>gorn
and the negated form? ingorn? ungorn?? disgorn?!
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The change happened in Latin before the words migrated to English: aptus 'suitable' and ineptus 'foolish; awkward'. Go blame it on the Romans with their vulgar tongues.
Would this be a sort of backwards umlaut, where, rather than the back vowel being fronted in anticipation of a following front vowel it's fronted in reaction to a leading front vowel?
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Progressive metaphony, in which a vowel early in the word influences a subsequent vowel, can be distinguished from regressive metaphony, in which a vowel towards the end of the word influences a preceding vowel. (Progressive metaphony is sometimes called "left-to-right" metaphony, and regressive metaphony may be called "right-to-left" metaphony.)( link). I think of umlaut more in the context of Germanic languages, though it happens sporadically in Romance, too. Cf. Genoese: ō can /u kaŋ/ 'the dog', i chen /i kɛŋ/ 'the dogs'. I have seen umlaut used in the literature though in reference to other languages, e.g., an Arabic dialect.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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the worthless word for the day (Apr. 9) is: fatigable
[fr. L. fatigare, to fatigue] /FAT uh guh bul/
subject to fatigue; easily tired: defatigable
(where defatigable was truly lost, and then
back-formed from indefatigable; where de- is
used to intensify and in- to negate)
"It is evident that the idea of any kind of play
can only be associated with the idea of an
imperfect, childish, and fatigable nature."
- John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1853)
"He was fatigable, and often desperately
fatigued, but he persisted..."
- Hershel Parker, Herman Melville (2005)
"I was always the most defatigable of hacks."
- Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One (1948)
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Do I understand right that defatigable is more fatigable than
fatigable?
Ha! Indefatigable. Even though I do not keep a special word as a favorite indefatigable is one I really specially like. It's a smooth running word and also the name of Captain Hornblower's ship in the TV serial 'Captain Hornblower'. The Indefatigable also called the 'Indee'. A truly invincible word. Is vincible in use?
Last edited by BranShea; 05/07/09 10:07 PM.
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>Do I understand right that defatigable is more fatigable than
fatigable?
it should be noted that the use of the prefix de- in a non-negative sense (such as where it indicates completely, as in denude) almost always indicates a Latinate form came first (denudare).
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the worthless word for the day (Apr. 10) is: crastinate
[fr. L. crastinum, tomorrow] obs.
= procrastinate, delay
(hence crastination = procrastination)
so why procrastinate? the prefix was added in classical
Latin procrastinare, to put off until the morrow.
crastinate seems to be just an inkhorn term, from L. crastinum, morrow.
"And try, by pray'rs, and vows, and floods of tears,
To crastinate their sure impending doom."
- Richard Dagley, (from) Death's Doings (1828)
""I am trying to crastinate, so I can stay here long
enough to find out what is so infernally important about
your quest.""
- Piers Anthony, Swell Foop (2002)
-tsuwm
http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd
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As still try to get it right what about this one. It seems to have a negative (?) as well as a positive (?) meaning:
Main Entry: de·pose
Pronunciation: \di-ˈpōz, dē-\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): de·posed; de·pos·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French deposer, from Late Latin deponere (perfect indicative deposui), from Latin, to put down
Date: 14th century
transitive verb
1: to remove from a throne or other high position
2: to put down : deposit
3 [Middle English, from Medieval Latin deponere, from Late Latin] a: to testify to under oath or by affidavit b: affirm, assert c: to take a deposition of <depose a witness>
intransitive verb
: to bear witness
btw, the same positive/negative seems to go with dis·pose
Last edited by BranShea; 05/09/09 11:00 AM.
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these are all just shaded senses of to put (poser) down (de-) [sense 3 also exists in the word depone]
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Something I've wondered for a while: is depose a back-formation of deposition?
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