4 ms·

Apparently the two words are unrelated in origin. "With" originally meant something closer to "against," whereas "mid" was closer to "with" in today's English.

Apparently the two words are unrelated in origin. "With" originally meant something closer to "against," whereas "mid" was closer to "with" in today's English. Over time, "with" changed meanings, we gained the word "against" and "mid" survives in fossil form in words like "midwife."

permo-w 3y ago
it seems like far too much of a coincidence to me that the words sound almost identical in fast spoken language
- memsom 3y ago
  Both words exist in Swedish - med and vid, and med means "with" and vid means more like "at".
  - einherjae 3y ago
    Vid isnt closer to “by”? (Asking as a Norwegian, since “ved” is “by” or “beside”)
    - memsom 3y ago
      yeah - it can mean "by" too... it has a number of meanings. It is the usual "almost but not quite the same as" you get when languages and prepositions diverge. Norwegian and Swedish are pretty similar, except when they are not.
- canjobear 3y ago
  Words don't usually change in a one-off way. If you see a change from m to w in one word, you're likely to see it in another word in the same language. For example, in going from Proto-Germanic to English there was a general shift to drop the sound n before fricative sounds, as is apparent in multiple words: English five vs. German fünf, English us vs. German uns, English soft vs. German sanft. In the case of mid and with, we don't see other instances of m turning into w. Coupled with the fact that mid and with used to coexist, and they have plausible etymologies arising from independent sources in Proto-Indo-European, the preponderance of the evidence is for independent origins for the two words.
- gpvos 3y ago
  It is quite clear from the etymologies that both words already existed for aeons in English and its ancestors. So there is absolutely no corruption going on "in the first place". What is, however, possible is that their similarity was a factor in their merging. That is something that happens occasionally.
kaladin-jasnah 3y ago
And in a completely unrelated derivation, the word "mid" means "not very good" in Gen Z slang.
- permo-w 3y ago
  it means average. as in mid-tier
  - gbear605 3y ago
    It literally means average, but in actual usage it means bad. For example, if an outfit is described as “mid”, the implication is that the outfit is bad and the person should not be wearing it. Maybe this is because more than half of everything is bad?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - permo-w 3y ago
      this isn't how I've heard it used
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      It's not that more than half of everything is bad (technically this can't be, if by "bad" we mean "worse than average"); it's more of a social interplay issue. The specific example you gave: > if an outfit is described as “mid”, the implication is that the outfit is bad and the person should not be wearing it. I'd say most people on the Internet have been conditioned since childhood to deliver and expect "white lies" on such topics. The actual mid-tier/average outfit is indicated by nonspecific reactions such as "you look great!". Saying "this looks average" is pretty much an insult. Greatness, or extreme badness, are communicated by expending extra effort on description, delivery or acts surrounding it. Similar phenomenon applies to pretty much anything involving descriptions of individuals or their choices. In the extreme, you get the supposed[0] German way of doing employee references, where a reference is never in any way negative, but if it looks ordinary, like "Person X is never late", it is to be mentally prefixed with "Literally the only good thing we can say about them is that...". This kind of heavily biased distribution of scales seems to be a wider thing in general. Obvious examples are all kinds of star ratings on-line: in e-commerce, in app stores, delivery services, restaurants, etc.: 5 stars out of 5 is "good", 4 stars is "meh", anything below is strictly negative. From my own life, I remember one pre-internet case: school grades. On a scale of 1-5, with 6 being awarded for extraordinary achievements, the actual scale - as perceived by teachers, parents and students - was: 1-3 = various shades of bad; 4 = meh/average; 5 = what parents expect you should be getting by default; 6 = what parents expect you to get if you show minimum effort. -- [0] - Something I've read about multiple times on HN.
croisillon 3y ago
"wider" in German still means counter/against

permo-w 3y ago

it seems like far too much of a coincidence to me that the words sound almost identical in fast spoken language

memsom 3y ago
Both words exist in Swedish - med and vid, and med means "with" and vid means more like "at".
- einherjae 3y ago
  Vid isnt closer to “by”? (Asking as a Norwegian, since “ved” is “by” or “beside”)
  - memsom 3y ago
    yeah - it can mean "by" too... it has a number of meanings. It is the usual "almost but not quite the same as" you get when languages and prepositions diverge. Norwegian and Swedish are pretty similar, except when they are not.
canjobear 3y ago
Words don't usually change in a one-off way. If you see a change from m to w in one word, you're likely to see it in another word in the same language. For example, in going from Proto-Germanic to English there was a general shift to drop the sound n before fricative sounds, as is apparent in multiple words: English five vs. German fünf, English us vs. German uns, English soft vs. German sanft. In the case of mid and with, we don't see other instances of m turning into w. Coupled with the fact that mid and with used to coexist, and they have plausible etymologies arising from independent sources in Proto-Indo-European, the preponderance of the evidence is for independent origins for the two words.
gpvos 3y ago
It is quite clear from the etymologies that both words already existed for aeons in English and its ancestors. So there is absolutely no corruption going on "in the first place". What is, however, possible is that their similarity was a factor in their merging. That is something that happens occasionally.

kaladin-jasnah 3y ago

And in a completely unrelated derivation, the word "mid" means "not very good" in Gen Z slang.

permo-w 3y ago
it means average. as in mid-tier
- gbear605 3y ago
  It literally means average, but in actual usage it means bad. For example, if an outfit is described as “mid”, the implication is that the outfit is bad and the person should not be wearing it. Maybe this is because more than half of everything is bad?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - permo-w 3y ago
    this isn't how I've heard it used
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    It's not that more than half of everything is bad (technically this can't be, if by "bad" we mean "worse than average"); it's more of a social interplay issue. The specific example you gave: > if an outfit is described as “mid”, the implication is that the outfit is bad and the person should not be wearing it. I'd say most people on the Internet have been conditioned since childhood to deliver and expect "white lies" on such topics. The actual mid-tier/average outfit is indicated by nonspecific reactions such as "you look great!". Saying "this looks average" is pretty much an insult. Greatness, or extreme badness, are communicated by expending extra effort on description, delivery or acts surrounding it. Similar phenomenon applies to pretty much anything involving descriptions of individuals or their choices. In the extreme, you get the supposed[0] German way of doing employee references, where a reference is never in any way negative, but if it looks ordinary, like "Person X is never late", it is to be mentally prefixed with "Literally the only good thing we can say about them is that...". This kind of heavily biased distribution of scales seems to be a wider thing in general. Obvious examples are all kinds of star ratings on-line: in e-commerce, in app stores, delivery services, restaurants, etc.: 5 stars out of 5 is "good", 4 stars is "meh", anything below is strictly negative. From my own life, I remember one pre-internet case: school grades. On a scale of 1-5, with 6 being awarded for extraordinary achievements, the actual scale - as perceived by teachers, parents and students - was: 1-3 = various shades of bad; 4 = meh/average; 5 = what parents expect you should be getting by default; 6 = what parents expect you to get if you show minimum effort. -- [0] - Something I've read about multiple times on HN.

croisillon 3y ago

"wider" in German still means counter/against