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#200443 06/13/2011 1:25 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
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I've read the whole story of verbing nouns from today's word and then came etiolate. I still try to find which noun this verb came from as the introduction promised. Is it somewhere? Could someone please tell where I missed it?

etiolate
MEANING:
verb tr.:
1. To make pale by preventing exposure to sunlight.
2. To make weak by stunting the growth of.
verb intr.:
3. To become pale, weak, or stunted.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French étioler (to make pale), from Latin stipula (straw). Earliest documented use: 1791.

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It was verbed in French... the Old French noun esteule, esteulle became the verb (s')étieuler

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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks goofy, that was ( to me anyway ) the missing link.
So I could find some other details about it. Thanks!

the Norman French word éteule
derived from the Old French word esteule
derived from the Vulgar Latin word stupula
derived from the Latin word stipula (stalk; stubble; straw)
Date
The earliest known usage of éteule in French dates from the 11th century.
Derivations in French
étieuler
Cognates
Italian stoppia, Provençal estobla
Usage
Word found in Norman French

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stranger
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So glad I saw this. I think in my mind I've always thought etiolate meant elongate, spread thin. Wonder what I read that made me mis-translate/replace it that way? Probably a writer used it to refer to a sickly child or something equivalent. Good to learn.

Last edited by allisondbl; 06/13/2011 8:18 PM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ha, ;-) to me the word is so completely new I never even used or read it the wrong way.

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old hand
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Alley, I've frequently tried to make it equivalent to attenuate, which can fit some of the same contexts. Maybe you've done something similar.

Peter

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Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
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I totally misinterpreted the opening post. I thought you wondered where the noun for etiolate was. It's etiolation, but now I see, after reading the posts, what you were really looking for. Vulgar Latin took many nouns and verbed them. The big difference between what happens in Latin and in English, is that English can verb nouns without modifying the form of the noun, whereas Latin has to add in some morphology.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, I could not understand the jump from stipula to étioler.
But now I it is clear. :-)

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for many years I wrongly read this word as etoilate, reversing the o and the i. I associated it with etoile (star) and although I knew the meaning, I associated it in my mind with pale as in starlight!


~===,===,=^=<
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Carpal Tunnel
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That's a rather very nice association. But isn't starlight sometimes called bright?

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are you thinking 'star light, star bright, first star I see tonight'? I guess it could be bright, especially out in the desert away from any other light source. How about the 'pale moonlight'? If you have an eclipse is the moon etiolated by that phenomenon?


~===,===,=^=<
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Carpal Tunnel
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On the contrary, it becomes reddish/ brownish as I've had the pleasure to observe some time ago.
:-) I like your signature.

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old hand
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Originally Posted By: BranShea
I like your signature.

I want to like it, but I'm still struggling with it.

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Pooh-Bah
Pooh-Bah
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I don't understand what it means

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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't understand either.....


----please, draw me a sheep----
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it's a little aligator. Aligatorz is my email addy name.
~===,===,==^=~
It doesn't always look like an aligator depending on the font.


~===,===,=^=<
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Technically correct, but what I had in mind was how much paler, cleaner the moon looks after the eclipse....like removing the dirt from the asparagus.


~===,===,=^=<
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Carpal Tunnel
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OK.....I sort of see it now. Clever. Thanks for the explain.


----please, draw me a sheep----
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there are two versions of the aligator...one with its mouth open and one 'smiling'


~===,===,=^=<
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old hand
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Originally Posted By: va-vavoom
it's a little aligator.

Well, duh. Now that you say it, it's pretty obvious; although (this being a forum about language) I don't think I've seen it spelled that way in English before.

And it is clever!

Last edited by Tromboniator; 06/23/2011 7:04 AM.
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Pooh-Bah
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Originally Posted By: va-vavoom
it's a little aligator. Aligatorz is my email addy name.
~===,===,==^=~
It doesn't always look like an aligator depending on the font.


Thanks...but I'll have to take your word for that explanation as I still cant see it. Even though Trombo and others do....I am wondering if its a case like Hans Christian Anderson's, 'the Emperors New Clothes'!

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Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
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the tail is to the left ~=== then a leg , then body === another leg , then the neck and head with open mouth =^=<

put together:

~===,===,=^=<

in reverse:

>=^=,===,===~


formerly known as etaoin...
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I don't think she has ever thought about going in 'reverse'! She's always been a 'one-way girl'! Now, that's funny, because her sister, the croc, (the one with the smile) has always gone both ways.
I wonder why I would always make one, one way, and the other diversified? Funny how your brain works! Or doesn't!


~===,===,=^=<
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Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
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I like her both ways. It's the same with watching an Arabic
news media: with the script going right to left.
The flag hanging vertically always bothers me with the
canton on the upper left. To me it just seems out of whack and
that it should be on the upper right.


----please, draw me a sheep----

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