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#42598 09/26/01 09:30 PM
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>assuming we are roughly contemporaries, you were about 14 years old during that golden era: I have to commend you, you were a far more avid reader than was I.

Yes, I'm with inselpeter, if I get his gist, I think that you are thinking of the wrong kind of articles. Come on you guys reading Playboy as a fourteen year old boy, pull the other one!



#42599 09/27/01 03:47 PM
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I just read the an apron became a napron, which became a napkin part. Actually® it started out as a napron and the n migrated over to the a. A napron is a big one and a napkin is a little one.


#42600 09/27/01 03:51 PM
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Well, [silent Harrumph®] I, for one, never *read Playboy when I was 14!!!

I just looked at the pictures.


#42601 09/27/01 04:04 PM
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arpon / napron / napkin
Faldage is right - rechecking my source shows that my recall was wrong, but suggests a longer story.

My source indicates that English took the Old French word naperon (= "little tablecloth") but used it for the larger covering; later the phrase for that large covering changed from "a napron" to "an apron". That source does not indicate, however, how English got "napkin" for the small covering.

Faldage, can you help further?


#42602 09/27/01 05:05 PM
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how English got "napkin" for the small covering.

I allus thought -on was an augmentive suffix , so I dunno if you're gone believe me. Without consulting the discredited AHD I'd say that the nap part was the root and meant something like hunk of cloth with a protective function against food and the -kin was just the good old English diminutive suffix.


#42603 09/27/01 06:05 PM
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I'm wondering about situations where the gender of a noun changes its meaning or sense. Spanish has a few words that can take either gender in their article. The only one that comes to mind is mar, the word for "sea," which is usually a masculine noun but is sometimes considered a feminine noun when used in more literary language, and in some idiomatic expressions.

A twist on this is adjectives that only take one gender's ending - an example being the Italian word figo which means "cool," as in "way cool pocket OED, dude" but is only ever given the masculine ending - ending it in an "a" changes it to a noun, and an obscene anatomical reference at that.

Are there cases like this in other languages, where switching the gender can greatly change the meaning?


#42604 09/27/01 06:34 PM
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The only one that comes to mind is mar, the word for "sea,"...Are there cases like this in other languages?

IIRC, The German word See means "sea" (as in one of the reputed Seven) when it is one gender (masc?) and "the ocean" (as in the one big one) when another (fem?). Can a better German speaker than I confirm/deny this? Jazzo, it was you wot started the thread...


#42605 09/27/01 06:55 PM
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There's other examples from Spanish but I can't think of any.


#42606 09/27/01 07:03 PM
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Faldage's inability to think of another example somehow helped me think of another example:

la radio = radio
el radio = radius


#42607 09/27/01 08:50 PM
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The German word See means "sea" (as in one of the reputed Seven) when it is one gender (masc?) and "the ocean" (as in the one big one) when another (fem?).

From http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa042098.htm it appears that der See is lake and die See is ocean.


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