4 ms·

For english speakers, "composting" here means punching a ticket. I never understood where the word came from, and I'm a native French speaker.

bane 8y ago
Wow, thanks for that. I can't find a definition in an English dictionary that was able to make sense of that. It appears to have etymology in Old French composte which comes from Latin "composita" or "compositum" which means something like "something put together". Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil...but I can arrive at how we got to "composite" which seems to have different but similar roots.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  > Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil... The etymology I see all mentions "composte" as "mixture of leaves, manure, etc., for fertilizing land", which suggests that it started as people using a *composita of manure and plant detritus together to ferment for fertilizer and the word sense shifted from referring to the specific mixture to the general composting process.
  - bane 8y ago
    Ahh, that makes sense.
niea_11 8y ago
Apparently the meaning doesn't come from the verb but from the italian word : "compositore" (according to wikitionary [1] and the larousse dictionary [2]) (again in [1]) "compositore" from italian is equivalent to "compositeur" in french which can mean "a person that writes music" but can also mean "a typographer or compositor". [1] : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur [2] : https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17760 https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17...
- carlob 8y ago
  Funnily enough the word we use for stamping tickets in Italian is vidimare which comes from vidimus (seen) in Latin, so it's actually closer to visa in etymology.
titanix2 8y ago
Thanks for having filled the "exercice left to the reader" as I didn't know the correct word!
magduf 8y ago
For ESL speakers, "composting" to us means "put in a bin with a bunch of dead vegetation and let it rot". It can also refer to throwing something away in a bin that is destined for a compost pile (for instance, food scraps). I was wondering why the OP would be treated like a thief for not throwing his ticket away to be composted.

bane 8y ago

Wow, thanks for that. I can't find a definition in an English dictionary that was able to make sense of that. It appears to have etymology in Old French composte which comes from Latin "composita" or "compositum" which means something like "something put together". Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil...but I can arrive at how we got to "composite" which seems to have different but similar roots.

jcranmer 8y ago
> Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil... The etymology I see all mentions "composte" as "mixture of leaves, manure, etc., for fertilizing land", which suggests that it started as people using a *composita of manure and plant detritus together to ferment for fertilizer and the word sense shifted from referring to the specific mixture to the general composting process.
- bane 8y ago
  Ahh, that makes sense.

niea_11 8y ago

Apparently the meaning doesn't come from the verb but from the italian word : "compositore" (according to wikitionary [1] and the larousse dictionary [2]) (again in [1]) "compositore" from italian is equivalent to "compositeur" in french which can mean "a person that writes music" but can also mean "a typographer or compositor". [1] : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur [2] : https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17760 https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17...

carlob 8y ago
Funnily enough the word we use for stamping tickets in Italian is vidimare which comes from vidimus (seen) in Latin, so it's actually closer to visa in etymology.

titanix2 8y ago

Thanks for having filled the "exercice left to the reader" as I didn't know the correct word!

magduf 8y ago

For ESL speakers, "composting" to us means "put in a bin with a bunch of dead vegetation and let it rot". It can also refer to throwing something away in a bin that is destined for a compost pile (for instance, food scraps). I was wondering why the OP would be treated like a thief for not throwing his ticket away to be composted.