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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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that is a good word. it will be interesting to see how it gets picked up.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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I agree. A concept in need of a word. I just fear that 'ecotone' doesn't quite have what it takes to fill the job.
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Carpal Tunnel
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To me it is a one-word equivalent of "sweet are the uses of adversity". Thanks, Bingley.
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ohmigawd!ohmigawd!ohmigawd!.... ETA IS A CARPAL!!! Congratulations eta! Thanks for all the words! is this already in another thread.....shall go look
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I am with Faldage....the word doesn't seem to link strongly with the concept. Isn't there a word already though, for just such a barrier..an ecological threshold or watershed or some such thing. Have that feeling of deja vu all over again..
PS: anyone know where threshold came from, etymologically that is?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Watershed would be the area of land that drains into some specific body of water. Basically the land covered by a river and all its tributaries.
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Yes but, Fald, a watershed is also used in the sense of a boundary, isn't it? In the brain, for e.g, we have watershed vascular areas, which are the ones located at the tertiary points in distribution or at the extreme ends of supply. These areas signify a boundary zone that are extremely prone to ischemic attacks.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I din't know that definition, maahey.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Threshold seems to be just a simple figure of speech.The threshold is the lowest part of the doorway, and if you are big enough to get over it, you're in!
From the Internet: Nonsense. “Threshold,” first recorded in A.D. 1000, descends from an Old English compound “threscold,” “doorsill, point of entry.” The “hold” has nothing to do with keeping one’s footing. The original meaning of “thresh” was “to tread, to trample.” Farmers originally threshed wheat, separated the grain from the chaff, by treading on piles of it. The treading seemed similar to wiping one’s feet at the doorway of a house, and that entrance took the name “threshold” from such threshing, or treading.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Congratulations eta!aw shucks, thanks for noticing, maahey!
formerly known as etaoin...
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The watershed is the dividing line -- usually something like a mountain range -- between two drainage areas. Thence (mis)applied to the drainage areas themselves, but in geography it's the dividing line.
An ecotone isn't a boundary like that, but a transitional region between biomes. I think it's a standard word in ecology, but perhaps it's not as common as biome.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hey, maahey, it's great to see you again, and congratulations, eta! As to the word--I agree; it doesn't seem very descriptive, does it? I kind of wish they'd made it ecozone. Not that that is more descriptive--it just trips off the tongue easier.
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Carpal Tunnel
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interesting to find that tone and thin share history.
Main Entry: tone Pronunciation: 'tOn Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Latin tonus tension, tone, from Greek tonos, literally, act of stretching; akin to Greek teinein to stretch -- more at THIN
Main Entry: thin Pronunciation: 'thin Function: adjective Inflected Form(s): thin·ner; thin·nest Etymology: Middle English thinne, from Old English thynne; akin to Old High German dunni thin, Latin tenuis thin, tenEre to hold, tendere to stretch, Greek teinein
formerly known as etaoin...
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man, there are just so many interesting connections to be found in this one little word... from Bartleby: Indo-European Roots ENTRY: ten- DEFINITION: To stretch. Derivatives include tendon, pretend, hypotenuse, tenement, tenor, entertain, lieutenant, and tone. I. Derivatives with the basic meaning. 1. Suffixed form *ten-do-. a. tend1, tender2, tense1, tent1; attend, contend, detent, distend, extend, intend, ostensible, pretend, subtend, from Latin tendere, to stretch, extend; b. portend, from Latin portendere, “to stretch out before” (por-, variant of pro-, before; see per1), a technical term in augury, “to indicate, presage, foretell.” 2. Suffixed form *ten-yo-. tenesmus; anatase, bronchiectasis, catatonia, entasis, epitasis, hypotenuse, neoteny, peritoneum, protasis, syntonic, telangiectasia, from Greek teinein, to stretch, with o-grade form ton- and zero-grade noun tasis (< *t-ti-), a stretching, tension, intensity. 3. Reduplicated zero-grade form *te-t-o-. tetanus, from Greek tetanos, stiff, rigid. 4. Suffixed full-grade form *ten-tro-. a. tantra, from Sanskrit tantram, loom; b. sitar, from Persian tr, string. 5. Basic form (with stative suffix) *ten--. tenable, tenacious, tenaculum, tenant, tenement, tenet, tenon, tenor, tenure, tenuto; abstain, contain, continue, detain, entertain, lieutenant, maintain, obtain, pertain, pertinacious, rein, retain, retinaculum, retinue, sustain, from Latin tenre, to hold, keep, maintain (< “to cause to endure or continue, hold on to”). 6. Extended form *ten-s-. Suffixed zero-grade form *ts-elo-. tussah, from Sanskrit tasaram, shuttle. II. Derivatives meaning “stretched,” hence “thin.” 1. Suffixed zero-grade form *t-u-. thin, from Old English thynne, thin, from Germanic *thunniz, from *thunw-. 2. Suffixed full-grade form *ten-u-. tenuous; attenuate, extenuate, from Latin tenuis, thin, rare, fine. 3. Suffixed full-grade form *ten-ero-. tender1, tendril; intenerate, from Latin tener, tender, delicate. III. Derivatives meaning “something stretched or capable of being stretched, a string.” 1. Suffixed form *ten-n-. tendon, teno-, from Greek tenn, tendon. 2. Suffixed o-grade form *ton-o-. tone; baritone, tonoplast, from Greek tonos, string, hence sound, pitch. 3. Suffixed zero-grade form *t-y-. taenia; polytene, from Greek taini, band, ribbon. (Pokorny 1. ten- 1065.) and I should probably ask what the heck o-grade and zero-grade and all that's about...
formerly known as etaoin...
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and I should probably ask what the heck o-grade and zero-grade and all that's about
I've been meaning to post about this, and this is a good time. A while back IE philologists noticed that the roots they were reconstructing were basically of the form TVRT where T stands for most stops (p, b, t, d, k, g, aspiracted and not), V is a vowel, R is roughly an 'l' or an 'r' (also maybe 'w' and 'y'). The vowel that usually was reconstructed was e, but o appeared often enough, too. Long story short, it was hypothesized (and not all agree on this) that e varied with o and also zero (i.e., no vowel) depending on the accent (which may have been a pitch accent, or tone, like in Chinese or Lithuanian). There were some 'a's too and long version of some of the vowels, but these were ascribed to fricatives called laryngeals (roughly and probably glottal stop, 'h', 'ch' as in German, and maybe 'gh' (voiced) as in Arabic.
So, there are these grades that IEists talk about. Anyway, it helps to regularize some of the irregularities in the reconstructed roots.
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Carpal Tunnel
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thanks, jheem! I'll need to take some time and really go through my entry and see if I can filter in your explanation.
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watershed is also used in the sense of a boundary, isn't it?
Yes, there is certainly a more metaphorical usage for "watershed" too, meaning a moment or thing that divides what is being discussed into two distinct parts. "X was a watershed moment in the history of Y", for example. I think the author intends to use "ecotone" to represent a more gradual transition period -- a subtle filtering rather than a dramatic change.
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Thanks, Eta. I'll see if I can come up with a better explanation with examples. I typed mine up pretty late. Congrats on going carpal!
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