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My bad, "exigence" is a French word whose meaning isn't exactly identical in English. To be exigent means to have a high standard. The verb "exiger" means "to r

by pygy_ 8y ago

My bad, "exigence" is a French word whose meaning isn't exactly identical in English. To be exigent means to have a high standard. The verb "exiger" means "to require". English adds an urgency dimension that doesn't exist in French. Many French words built on that template (direct latin root + -ent/-ence suffix) can be used as is in English, but it is not always the case.

stochastic_monk 8y ago
To make this point relevant, are you more familiar with French and thereby translating an idea of yours in French to English with a not-quite-perfect cognate? Without such a connection, the reasoning for stating this is unclear to me. Could you clarify?
- pygy_ 8y ago
  I'm a native French speaker, fluently thinking in English. There's a vast pool of vocabulary that is common to both languages, from which I draw words indiscriminately (Latin roots and the same formula to derive verbs/nouns/adjectives, with minor variations for each langage (e.g. add "-ate" for verbs in Englsih and "-er" in French)). Some of these are so-called "false friends", with different meanings in both languages. I have a spidey sense that works most of the time in the English => French direction (e.g. "consistent"), less so in the other.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    Thank you, I wasn’t quite sure. As a native English speaker who has learned French, I’ve often run into “faux amis”. Perhaps the most embarrassing was “préservatifs”, which I expected to mean preservatives but actually meant condoms.
    - pygy_ 8y ago
      Ooh, yes, that one must have been embarrassing indeed :-) "Préservatif" is such a weird euphemism.
      - stochastic_monk 8y ago
        “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre.
        pygy_ 8y ago
        Wow TIL. I have a medical background, so I'm familiar with the "preventive" meaning, but I wasn't aware of the "contraceptive" one.
        JadeNB 8y ago
        > “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre. Isn't it (less bizarre)? My dictionary gives the medical meaning of prophylactic as "intended to prevent disease"; using it to refer to contraception just requires a more generous conception of 'disease'. By contrast, if 'préservatif' in French were translated to 'preservative' in English, it would mean, again according to my dictionary, "a substance used to preserve … against decay." I find it a bit more of a stretch to generalise this to pregnancy. On the other hand, maybe it is just my English-speaker-ness showing through that I can think of pregnancy much more easily as a disease (it literally causes dis-ease …) than as decay.
        stochastic_monk 8y ago
        You’re right. I’d not realized that it was regarding preventing disease, not simply a generic precautionary measure. And while pregnancy may well be viewed as a disease or a cancer, after a fashion, at least condoms protect from a wider range of affliction.
hinkley 8y ago
I figured out what you meant. I suspect a lot of other Romance language students did too. Exiger seems like a 4th year sort of word though, and a lot of us unfortunately are only required to take 2 or 3 years, and German or Japanese are not uncommon.

by pygy_ 8y ago

stochastic_monk 8y ago

To make this point relevant, are you more familiar with French and thereby translating an idea of yours in French to English with a not-quite-perfect cognate? Without such a connection, the reasoning for stating this is unclear to me. Could you clarify?

pygy_ 8y ago
I'm a native French speaker, fluently thinking in English. There's a vast pool of vocabulary that is common to both languages, from which I draw words indiscriminately (Latin roots and the same formula to derive verbs/nouns/adjectives, with minor variations for each langage (e.g. add "-ate" for verbs in Englsih and "-er" in French)). Some of these are so-called "false friends", with different meanings in both languages. I have a spidey sense that works most of the time in the English => French direction (e.g. "consistent"), less so in the other.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  Thank you, I wasn’t quite sure. As a native English speaker who has learned French, I’ve often run into “faux amis”. Perhaps the most embarrassing was “préservatifs”, which I expected to mean preservatives but actually meant condoms.
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    Ooh, yes, that one must have been embarrassing indeed :-) "Préservatif" is such a weird euphemism.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre.
      - pygy_ 8y ago
        Wow TIL. I have a medical background, so I'm familiar with the "preventive" meaning, but I wasn't aware of the "contraceptive" one.
      - JadeNB 8y ago
        > “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre. Isn't it (less bizarre)? My dictionary gives the medical meaning of prophylactic as "intended to prevent disease"; using it to refer to contraception just requires a more generous conception of 'disease'. By contrast, if 'préservatif' in French were translated to 'preservative' in English, it would mean, again according to my dictionary, "a substance used to preserve … against decay." I find it a bit more of a stretch to generalise this to pregnancy. On the other hand, maybe it is just my English-speaker-ness showing through that I can think of pregnancy much more easily as a disease (it literally causes dis-ease …) than as decay.
        stochastic_monk 8y ago
        You’re right. I’d not realized that it was regarding preventing disease, not simply a generic precautionary measure. And while pregnancy may well be viewed as a disease or a cancer, after a fashion, at least condoms protect from a wider range of affliction.

hinkley 8y ago

I figured out what you meant. I suspect a lot of other Romance language students did too. Exiger seems like a 4th year sort of word though, and a lot of us unfortunately are only required to take 2 or 3 years, and German or Japanese are not uncommon.