Lucus a non lucendo
I've come across this etymological principle before and I have a question concerning it.First a couple of cites which are relevant to my question.I have given you only a small selection of the many...
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Well, it is, as in 'fell walking'.Having said that, it occurred to me that I don't know what the definition of a fell is, and the online dictionaries seem to ignore it. I'd always assumed it was a...
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It comes from the Norse word fiall, mountain.The hill, mountain sense in English, however, OED1 marks as obsolete, except in proper names of hills in the north-west of England, eg Bowfell, Scafell,...
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this etymological principleI'm a little unclear what the principle is of which you speak. Is it the notion that the derivation of a word can contain a 180 turn in it or that the derivation must be...
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What I'm trying to establish is whether lucus a non lucendo is a genuine process of word-derivation or a joke. The Latin example for which it is named illustrates it nicely, ie the Latin word for...
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Are you sure you have a correct interpretation there? Perhaps there is key word/thought about "lacking" missing there. Or "leaning" or "seeking" even. Erinna is the Irish snake because it is always...
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Or the snake was called erinna because it was thought, however legitimately, to have been one of the ones driven out of Ireland by St. Patrick.
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I thought I'd asked this before many moons ago. BTWQuote: I've heard a number of examples of this kind of thing, all of which are determinedly hiding in the recesses of my brain at the momen...Read More
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Here's one example of reversal--two defintions of "nice" from the OED2:"2.a. Of conduct, behaviour, etc.: characterized by or encouraging wantonness or lasciviousness. Obs. ... b. Of a person: wanton,...
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Well put, doc. Thank you. All is clear now (for another few years!)
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I would think that nice was more an example of a drunkard's walk than of simple reversal.
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Faldage certainly has a point, that "nice" has been all over the map and its reversals of meaning are almost haphazard. "Parboil" would provided a more direct example of reversal of sense. Originally...
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I believe "peruse" is undergoing this transformation. My AHD gives the meaning as reading with great care, yet I hear it being used to mean to scan quickly or simply to look over casually.
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Scan is another term in the process of changing meaning, from examine closely to look over hastily. The online dics give both definitions.
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Actually, "peruse" has never meant anything other than to simply read, whether slow and deliberate or fast and sketchy.Various people use it to mean one or the other, but there has never been...
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Aren't we talking about different things here? Recent posts seem to cite words which are (or in some cases aren't) switching their meanings around to something like an antonym, through incremental...
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I wonder if basing the concept of the Betty Martin on the Latin lucus isn't a bit of an error itself. My Elementary Latin Dictionary by Charlton T. Lewis defines lucus as a sacred grove, consecrated...
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Perhaps it's time to set up a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Words. What a set of truly horrid examples of verbicide the members of this group have come up with. I would like to contribute a...
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I don't know what students at schools of journalism are taughtI do, and it sure as eggs is eggs wasn't grammar because there's no room in the ticky-box system to assess grammar, spelling or...
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