4 ms·

> "Near is a cognate of nigh, whose superlative is next" Wow, that makes a number of things in English and other languages make more sense ("[as] the next pers

by schoen 8y ago

> "Near is a cognate of nigh, whose superlative is next" Wow, that makes a number of things in English and other languages make more sense ("[as] the next person" in one of your links, the superlative -ste in German "nächster", the former Icelandic restaurant "Á Næstu Grösum", and the Portuguese "próximo!" to summon the person at the front of a line). Sorry other readers didn't like your etymological excursion; it reminds me of Lewis Thomas after he got ahold of a PIE reference (maybe the American Heritage Dictionary). Maybe people didn't feel it was relevant enough?

falsedan 8y ago
It’s not relevant in the slightest to the horrible ethical void in software engineer (except as an example of the kind of petty fussiness that is more welcomed than ethics & how it crowds out actual concerns which affect real live humans right now)
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  If you realise that adding complexity -- software, hardware, networks, sensors, service contracts -- all serve to increase distance and indirection, you have a frame for seeing potential problems, such as those highlighted by the article. I'm not sure if the same frame offers particular ways out of those problems, or if it largely serves to say "don't go there". I'm still thinking on that. As for etymologies, I'm finding them fascinatiing for uncovering root meanings and similarities between concepts. I'm also impressed by how many terms related to information, truth, trust, etc., are profoundly physical in their origins. I don't know that this will prove useful. It's quite interesting, though, to me at least. https://www.etymonline.com/word/interest https://www.etymonline.com/word/interest
dredmorbius 8y ago
Glad you liked that. Etymological explorations are damned interesting. What did Thomas get up to?
- schoen 8y ago
  Some of his columns (I guess in the NEJM) were reflections on etymology, and then he apparently published an entire book about it called "Et Cetera, Et Cetera". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas But in light of language change, I'm not sure that using these observations to form an argument -- especially at the kind of distances that exist between PIE and English -- will escape being accused of the etymological fallacy. Maybe if I re-read some of those Lewis Thomas essays, I might be concerned at the size of some of the historical leaps. There's that famous story that a king praised the design of St. Paul's Cathedral as "amusing, awful, and artificial" (although apparently there's only strong evidence for the "artificial" part). https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/31/st-pauls-cathedral/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/31/st-pauls-cathedral/
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    I'm not so interested in making an argument about how language ought be used today as three other major objectives: First, to understand how we got here. Looking back at either the evolution of words, or the relationships between words, of topics of current significance. Second, to understand older language and writing in the meanings of its time. Words shift. The word perfect meant, in the late 18th / early 19th century, not "flawless", but "fully developed", a distinction that's particularly critical in looking at discussions of biology and evolution. The term "art" (or artifice) for example, today might mean or carry connotations of deception, but in the 17th century would have a far stronger sense of craft. Another phrase with an interesting evolution is sophisticated, originally meaning "adulterated" or "perverted", now meaning "worldly" or "advanced". That shift occurred principally ~1930 - 1950, a date from which I've several dictionaries, showing the shift. A friend turned up the earlier sense from an 1880s dictionary. The word pollution has a markedly different connotation today than it would have even a century ago. And the etymology of vodka is (retrospectively) obvious and amusing. Combine this with use of Google's Ngram Viewer to trace the prevalence of words (or phrases) in usage, and evolution of language becomes even more fascinating. The modernity of a tremendous number of contemporary concepts is stark -- and I'm excluding the information-technology field. The 1930s, 50s, and 70s in particular seem to be watersheds, especially for terms about or concerning economics and politics or political issues (areas on which I've somewhat focused). The number of pat phrases which are unabashadly political, say, "Rugged Individualism* (February, 1928, Herbert Hoover).[1] There's the case of an editorial war over British and U.S. editions of an encyclopaedia I turned up a ways back, concerning the concept of "free trade", showing a certain evolution of meaning and/or acceptance: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chambers_encyclopaedia_editorial_statement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chamber... Third, there's looking at notions which today are so infused with their present meaning that we're much as David Foster Wallace's fish contemplating water: "what's water?" The terms typically used in physics are one set ("mass" comes from "barley cake", as an example), and concepts of truth, trust, knowledge, understanding, and communication quite particularly, as mentioned above. Some economic terms as well -- monopoly as an example: http://www.etymonline.com/word/monopoly http://www.etymonline.com/word/monopoly https://www.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/78ejl1/weinsteinomics_101_monopoly_is_fundamentally_a https://www.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/78ejl1/weinsteinomic... ________________________________ Notes: 1. Yes, with some antecedents, particularly "American Individualism", though that was also strongly political in connotation.

by schoen 8y ago

falsedan 8y ago

It’s not relevant in the slightest to the horrible ethical void in software engineer (except as an example of the kind of petty fussiness that is more welcomed than ethics & how it crowds out actual concerns which affect real live humans right now)

dredmorbius 8y ago
If you realise that adding complexity -- software, hardware, networks, sensors, service contracts -- all serve to increase distance and indirection, you have a frame for seeing potential problems, such as those highlighted by the article. I'm not sure if the same frame offers particular ways out of those problems, or if it largely serves to say "don't go there". I'm still thinking on that. As for etymologies, I'm finding them fascinatiing for uncovering root meanings and similarities between concepts. I'm also impressed by how many terms related to information, truth, trust, etc., are profoundly physical in their origins. I don't know that this will prove useful. It's quite interesting, though, to me at least. https://www.etymonline.com/word/interest https://www.etymonline.com/word/interest

dredmorbius 8y ago

Glad you liked that. Etymological explorations are damned interesting. What did Thomas get up to?

schoen 8y ago
Some of his columns (I guess in the NEJM) were reflections on etymology, and then he apparently published an entire book about it called "Et Cetera, Et Cetera". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas But in light of language change, I'm not sure that using these observations to form an argument -- especially at the kind of distances that exist between PIE and English -- will escape being accused of the etymological fallacy. Maybe if I re-read some of those Lewis Thomas essays, I might be concerned at the size of some of the historical leaps. There's that famous story that a king praised the design of St. Paul's Cathedral as "amusing, awful, and artificial" (although apparently there's only strong evidence for the "artificial" part). https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/31/st-pauls-cathedral/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/31/st-pauls-cathedral/
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  I'm not so interested in making an argument about how language ought be used today as three other major objectives: First, to understand how we got here. Looking back at either the evolution of words, or the relationships between words, of topics of current significance. Second, to understand older language and writing in the meanings of its time. Words shift. The word perfect meant, in the late 18th / early 19th century, not "flawless", but "fully developed", a distinction that's particularly critical in looking at discussions of biology and evolution. The term "art" (or artifice) for example, today might mean or carry connotations of deception, but in the 17th century would have a far stronger sense of craft. Another phrase with an interesting evolution is sophisticated, originally meaning "adulterated" or "perverted", now meaning "worldly" or "advanced". That shift occurred principally ~1930 - 1950, a date from which I've several dictionaries, showing the shift. A friend turned up the earlier sense from an 1880s dictionary. The word pollution has a markedly different connotation today than it would have even a century ago. And the etymology of vodka is (retrospectively) obvious and amusing. Combine this with use of Google's Ngram Viewer to trace the prevalence of words (or phrases) in usage, and evolution of language becomes even more fascinating. The modernity of a tremendous number of contemporary concepts is stark -- and I'm excluding the information-technology field. The 1930s, 50s, and 70s in particular seem to be watersheds, especially for terms about or concerning economics and politics or political issues (areas on which I've somewhat focused). The number of pat phrases which are unabashadly political, say, "Rugged Individualism* (February, 1928, Herbert Hoover).[1] There's the case of an editorial war over British and U.S. editions of an encyclopaedia I turned up a ways back, concerning the concept of "free trade", showing a certain evolution of meaning and/or acceptance: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chambers_encyclopaedia_editorial_statement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chamber... Third, there's looking at notions which today are so infused with their present meaning that we're much as David Foster Wallace's fish contemplating water: "what's water?" The terms typically used in physics are one set ("mass" comes from "barley cake", as an example), and concepts of truth, trust, knowledge, understanding, and communication quite particularly, as mentioned above. Some economic terms as well -- monopoly as an example: http://www.etymonline.com/word/monopoly http://www.etymonline.com/word/monopoly https://www.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/78ejl1/weinsteinomics_101_monopoly_is_fundamentally_a https://www.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/78ejl1/weinsteinomic... ________________________________ Notes: 1. Yes, with some antecedents, particularly "American Individualism", though that was also strongly political in connotation.