Saturday, December 06, 2014
Special language update
Professor Polistra noticed the phrase 'Buttons galore' in previous entry. Galore is an exceedingly strange word. It occupies a unique grammatical slot. Not exactly an adjective or an adverb; feels like a participle but isn't. It's just about the only modifier that comes after its noun in English. Only one other word fits the same slot: Aplenty. And they're synonyms.
Turns out those two words are parallel in formation and history as well as meaning. Triple cognate-ness.
Galore comes from an old Gaelic phrase gu leoir which meant "to sufficiency".
Aplenty comes from English on plenty. Plenty is, of course, Latin plenitas or sufficiency.
Both began as prepositional phrases forming a sort of adverb; both had an active verbish sense of "filled to the top"; both condensed into a single word after long fixed usage; finally both came to mean "filled to overflowing". If the prepositions had stayed out in the open, the post-noun location wouldn't have been so unique.
Professor Polistra noticed the phrase 'Buttons galore' in previous entry. Galore is an exceedingly strange word. It occupies a unique grammatical slot. Not exactly an adjective or an adverb; feels like a participle but isn't. It's just about the only modifier that comes after its noun in English. Only one other word fits the same slot: Aplenty. And they're synonyms.
Turns out those two words are parallel in formation and history as well as meaning. Triple cognate-ness.
Galore comes from an old Gaelic phrase gu leoir which meant "to sufficiency".
Aplenty comes from English on plenty. Plenty is, of course, Latin plenitas or sufficiency.
Both began as prepositional phrases forming a sort of adverb; both had an active verbish sense of "filled to the top"; both condensed into a single word after long fixed usage; finally both came to mean "filled to overflowing". If the prepositions had stayed out in the open, the post-noun location wouldn't have been so unique.
Labels: Language update
¶ 9:38 AM
