On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:14:55 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote: > On Tue, 3 Apr 2012 15:41:20 +0000 (UTC) Camaleón <noela...@gmail.com> > dijo: > >>But the above does not imply that using "posterior" in the above stanza >>is wrong. It can be improved (we are not writers not editors) but not >>incorrect. Those "old Latin" lovers (me included :-P) would even use the >>term "ulterior" for the said meaning. > > (OT) > > Latin POST, SUPRA and ULTRA meant 'after, following,' 'above, over,' and > 'beyond. All came into English as prefixes. And English borrowed so many > thousands of Latin words which already contained them as prefixes that, > over time, English speakers just reanalyzed them as English prefixes. > > The interesting part is that Latin applied endings to words in order to > form the comparative and superlative (like English -er and -est). Thus, > POSTERIOR, SUPERIOR and ULTERIOR meant 'more after, more following,' > 'more above, more over,' and 'more beyond. Languages do funny things, > especially when borrowing from another language. Instead of becoming the > comparative forms they became non-prefix adjectives, and lost the > comparative meaning.
Yes, and it's the same in Spanish. We now use the same word as an adjective for expressing "distance" (either "physical" or "time" based) in a more "poetical" form. Greetings, -- Camaleón -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jlhied$j6s$3...@dough.gmane.org
