Oh has anyone else seen this? a BBC (i think) production) with terry jones narrating the history of arithmatic, basiclly number theory, but with some fine words thrown in for fun
like banker and bankrupt.
banker from from bank (a bench)
money changers had counting benches, (similar to an abacus, but the benches they worked at (in roman numerals) were printed/painted banks.
the banker was the person who 'operated' the bank (bench)
all were licenced and regulated, and if they were caught cheating, their bench (bank) was broken up (bankrupted)(and the banker was thrown in jail) makes perfect sense (rupt -like erupt or rupture still has a sense of destructions)
other good words (not in common usage were some terms from hindi for really, really big numbers. i can't really remember them.. (palya? --the term for a distance a god could run in a year; when in every blink of an eye, he could run 10,000 meters(or so) so 1 eye blink is 1/10 of second, (so its 60,000 meters per second, 360,000 per minute, (and so one till you get to one year--a really big number!there were other terms too..
it was a funny show too, (well lets start with Terry Jones doing a show on Maths...the idea of it is funny!)
OP
