Monday, July 21, 2008

Roots

These come from a book on Power Vocabulary that I got years ago. If I had only worked through the book back then... Anyway, I just thought these ones were interesting.

Roots:
Anima: "The Breath of Life"
Ancient people connected the soul with the breath. They saw that when people died they stopped breathing, and they believed that the soul left the body at the same time. They also believed that when people sneezed, the soul left the body for a moment, so they mutter a hasty blessing to ensure that the soul would return quickly to its rightful place. The Latin root for air or breath, "anima," also means soul, spirit, or mind, reflecting this belief in a connection between life and breathing.

I thought the thing about sneezing was interesting. Not sure if it's true. I always thought it was weird how people say "bless you" when someone sneezed. I always thought it seemed arrogant for someone to be blessing someone else, as if we were somehow more holy than people who seemed less healthy.


Fac, Fact, Fect: "Just the facts, Ma'am"
We have formed a great many important and useful words form the Latin "facere," to make or do. A "facsimile," for example, derives from the Latin phrase "fac simile," meaning to make similar, and has come to mean an exact copy. Since facsimile copiers and transmitters have become very common, "facsimile" is now generally shortened and changed in spelling to "fax."

I did not know this! The fax = facsimile part.


Grad, Gres, Gress: "This way to the egress"
P. T. Barnum was a 19th century American showman whose greatest undertaking was the circus show he called "The Greatest Show on Earth."... When Barnum's customers took too long to leave his famous exhibits, he posted a sign: "This way to the egress." Following the arrow in eager anticipation of a new oddity, the visitors were ushered through the egress - the exit.


Ped, Pod: "Keep on Truckin'"
From the Latin root "ped" and the related Greek root "pod," both meaning food... One curious aberration is "peddler", for it is not from the root "ped," as we would expect. The word may be derived from "pedde," a Middle English word for a lidless hamper or basket in which fish and other items were carried as they were sold in the streets, though it is generally thought to be of unknown origin.

Nomin, Nomen: "A rose by any other name"
The differences between the nominative and objective cases have baffled countless generations of English-speaking students. Is it I or me? Who or whom?

1 comment:

yalu said...

Hey! I was really excited when I saw that you had posted, even though the next thing I saw was "ahh, GRE again." I'm working with a guy in Portugal; he said he would call twice and set up a meeting, so what am I to do...? I've checked google mail twice already.

Seems like learning latin is useful. Mike's 2 years of Latin is getting him a lot farther than his 3 years of Spanish, but he didn't really learn Spanish since he wasn't interested in it. I remember singing "animas" in choir...hm? my mom told me the part about the sneezing, and that's why people say "God Bless." In France they say "A te souhait" which means "to your wishes" not sure about the story though.

Xiumin and I found Shakespeare plays in a bookstore, and I said I had to see how the translation was. It's fairly literal; can you imagine translating Shakespeare?