OT Things to ponder

[RangerJoe]

A question to ponder upon, since I had not seen it yet on this thread. Since it is finally spring in the northern hemisphere and the chances are that the local snow pack will decrease and not measurably increase any further, why do thaw and unthaw have the same meaning? The modifier "un" usually indicates the opposite of yet n this case it does not. Why is that? If you were to unthaw something from the freezer, it thaws. Strange.

Of course, I may be wrong on the snow pack not measurably increasing further since it is only March . . .

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

A question to ponder upon, since I had not seen it yet on this thread. Since it is finally spring in the northern hemisphere and the chances are that the local snow pack will decrease and not measurably increase any further, why do thaw and unthaw have the same meaning? The modifier "un" usually indicates the opposite of yet n this case it does not. Why is that? If you were to unthaw something from the freezer, it thaws. Strange.

Of course, I may be wrong on the snow pack not measurably increasing further since it is only March . . .

I have pondered this myself. The English language is far from perfect. It is a work in progress....GP

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

A question to ponder upon, since I had not seen it yet on this thread. Since it is finally spring in the northern hemisphere and the chances are that the local snow pack will decrease and not measurably increase any further, why do thaw and unthaw have the same meaning? The modifier "un" usually indicates the opposite of yet n this case it does not. Why is that? If you were to unthaw something from the freezer, it thaws. Strange.

Of course, I may be wrong on the snow pack not measurably increasing further since it is only March . . .

AFAIK, unthaw is not a word but a colloquialism from those who are not worried about precision of language. Another example of such a linguistic slip is the word "irregardless", which is not in the dictionary.

In Canada, there were issues with the words flammable and inflammable which meant the same thing in English, but in French inflammable meant something that would not burn. So our Transportation of Hazardous Goods Act had to specify that fuel tankers and such be labelled Flammable so it meant the same to both English speaking and French speaking populations.

[geofflambert]

This is an excuse for me to do a favorite rant about ad/marketing outfits trying to invent words. Pharmaceuticals is a particular example. Not only do they have to dream up brand names for the product (which are usually really lame) but they have to come up with a nontechnical name for the category the thing falls into. "Biologic". Biologic is not a noun. If it were a noun I would be a biologic and you would be a biologic. The word already existed and has a useful meaning. They can't pretend that their usage is even jargon, because scientists and engineers would never misuse that word that way. The OED seems to be getting more and more liberal about what they let in, but I don't think they're going to let that usage of "biologic" stand.

[RangerJoe]

Yes, marketing. Creating a demand for a product when there really isn't much of a demand. Such like "organic" food. Tell me what inorganic food is then made from, clay?

[jdsrae]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

A question to ponder upon, since I had not seen it yet on this thread. Since it is finally spring in the northern hemisphere and the chances are that the local snow pack will decrease and not measurably increase any further, why do thaw and unthaw have the same meaning? The modifier "un" usually indicates the opposite of yet n this case it does not. Why is that? If you were to unthaw something from the freezer, it thaws. Strange.

Of course, I may be wrong on the snow pack not measurably increasing further since it is only March . . .

This is the first time I've ever seen the word "unthaw". In the context of getting something from the freezer, Australians would "defrost" it.
"Defrost" is a weird word to use in this context too now that I think about it. Frost is a very light layer of frozen dew, gone when you so much as step on it, whereas a few frozen steaks stuck together from the freezer could kill someone if thrown at them hard enough and if it hit them in a sensitive spot.
That really shouldn't be classified as "frosted" to begin with.

That's it, from now on I will "Unfreeze" things in the microwave.
I'll have to find our label maker and replace the "Defrost" button.

[MakeeLearn]

Why is "W" called a "Double U"? All the other letters have their own individual name. Shouldn't "W" be call "Wwwww"

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Why is "W" called a "Double U"? All the other letters have their own individual name. Shouldn't "W" be call "Wwwww"

Or "double V"....GP

[jdsrae]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Why is "W" called a "Double U"? All the other letters have their own individual name. Shouldn't "W" be call "Wwwww"

If anything it should be called double-v, because that's what it looks like

[BillBrown]

Look at it as a cursive letter, then does look like a double u.

[btd64]

Good point. I don't have time to look it up as I'm babysitting my grandson, but which came first, "W" or the cursive "W"?....GP

[RangerJoe]

Apparently, according to this site, what came first was the letter "wynn":

The Old English letter “wynn” was replaced by “uu,” which eventually developed into the modern w. (It really is a double u.)

https://www.dictionary.com/e/letters-alphabet/

According to Wikipedia:

The sounds /w/ (spelled ⟨V⟩) and /b/ (spelled ⟨B⟩) of Classical Latin developed into a bilabial fricative /β/ between vowels in Early Medieval Latin. Therefore, ⟨V⟩ no longer adequately represented the labial-velar approximant sound /w/ of Germanic phonology.

The Germanic /w/ phoneme was therefore written as ⟨VV⟩ or ⟨uu⟩ (⟨u⟩ and ⟨v⟩ becoming distinct only by the Early Modern period) by the earliest writers of Old English and Old High German, in the 7th or 8th centuries.[3] Gothic (not Latin-based), by contrast, had simply used a letter based on the Greek Υ for the same sound in the 4th century. The digraph ⟨VV⟩/⟨uu⟩ was also used in Medieval Latin to represent Germanic names, including Gothic ones like Wamba.

It is from this ⟨uu⟩ digraph that the modern name "double U" derives. The digraph was commonly used in the spelling of Old High German, but only in the earliest texts in Old English, where the /w/ sound soon came to be represented by the runic ⟨Ƿ⟩ wynn. In early Middle English, following the 11th-century Norman Conquest, ⟨uu⟩ gained popularity again and by 1300 it had taken wynn's place in common use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W

So really, both sort of developed at the same time. One style of writing shows one beginning (VV) while the other shows the other beginning (UU).

edited because the keyboard is acting up (it needs cleaning) and the operator needs coffee and did not notice the effects of the first noted problem.

[btd64]

You learn something new every day. Thanks RangerJoe....GP

[RangerJoe]

. . . I'm babysitting my grandson . . .

Enjoy. [:)]

A bit of advice that I like to tell grandparents. For a 40 pound child, one ounce of regular chocolate has as much caffeine as two cups of coffee for a 120 pound adult. A regular Hersheys bar has 1.55 ounces of chocolate at the present time, so it would be like 3 cups of coffee. Dark chocolate is even better since it has 4 times as much cocoa powder. So just before they leave, fill them up with chocolate.

Once, I let a 3 year old and an 18 month old have their fill of wild blueberries picked the day before. [:D] My sister did not know how good those are - they are better than prunes. However, my mother was there and she knew. So did grandma. None of us informed my sister about how good they worked. My sister found out about how good they are during the ride back to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A nice 24 hour ride with those girls - one in diapers. The oldest one also remembered me carrying her in the store where she got to pick out what kind of cookies that she wanted, what kind of candy that she wanted, and what kind of ice cream that she wanted. She still remembers that years later. Spoil children as long as you don't have to live with them. If they are related to you, it is called payback.

[btd64]

He he he. But unfortunately my daughter and grandson live with my wife and I....GP

[RangerJoe]

You learn something new every day. Thanks RangerJoe....GP

You are welcome. I like to say that if you learn something new then the day is not wasted.

Joe

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Apparently, according to this site, what came first was the letter "wynn":

The Old English letter “wynn” was replaced by “uu,” which eventually developed into the modern w. (It really is a double u.)

https://www.dictionary.com/e/letters-alphabet/

According to Wikipedia:

The sounds /w/ (spelled ⟨V⟩) and /b/ (spelled ⟨B⟩) of Classical Latin developed into a bilabial fricative /â/ between vowels in Early Medieval Latin. Therefore, ⟨V⟩ no longer adequately represented the labial-velar approximant sound /w/ of Germanic phonology.

The Germanic /w/ phoneme was therefore written as ⟨VV⟩ or ⟨uu⟩ (⟨u⟩ and ⟨v⟩ becoming distinct only by the Early Modern period) by the earliest writers of Old English and Old High German, in the 7th or 8th centuries.[3] Gothic (not Latin-based), by contrast, had simply used a letter based on the Greek Õ for the same sound in the 4th century. The digraph ⟨VV⟩/⟨uu⟩ was also used in Medieval Latin to represent Germanic names, including Gothic ones like Wamba.

It is from this ⟨uu⟩ digraph that the modern name "double U" derives. The digraph was commonly used in the spelling of Old High German, but only in the earliest texts in Old English, where the /w/ sound soon came to be represented by the runic ⟨Ƿ⟩ wynn. In early Middle English, following the 11th-century Norman Conquest, ⟨uu⟩ gained popularity again and by 1300 it had taken wynn's place in common use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W

So really, both sort of developed at the same time. One style of writing shows one beginning (VV) while the other shows the other beginning (UU).

edited because the keyboard is acting up (it needs cleaning) and the operator needs coffee and did not notice the effects of the first noted problem.

Take a look at the chiseled W s on Roman Empire structures - they are all VV in shape. Accordingly, the French people they conquered in Gaul pronounce the W as 'doubleveh". I don't know if the Roman alphabet pre-dated the Germanic or other peoples' runes or not.

[RangerJoe]

From what I have read, although I am not a Historian, the Runes developed from other languages including Roman. Other peoples had runes and not just the Germans/Scandinavians. Since those people were mobile during that time frame when they appeared to be developed, there is little to go on other than what was left behind. There is no written history from them, just other peoples observations. Since they were considered barbarians, their culture was considered inferior to the Roman and Greek cultures. Also, once the runes were adopted by other peoples than the originators, their meanings changed. Since they apparently could be read from left to right, right to left, up to down and/or down to up, they are hard to translate. I wonder why . . . [8|]

[Zorch]

Language families, not necessarily written. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Euro ... ielli1.svg

[geofflambert]

The Latin V, on the other hand, was pronounced like a w. So it was wheni, weedy, wiki, not veni, vidi, vici. That's what they were making fun of in "The Life of Bwian", all those sissy ws. Also the C was always hard, thus Caesar became kaiser, the Bulgarian Czar, and then the Russian tsar, as they had a character for a "ts" sound but not a "cz" or "cs" sound. It was Gay-yoos Yulius Kaisahr (the j was the consonant y). Because it was an empire, it influenced other languages and other languages influenced it, over time. The k eventually made it into Latin from kappa via the Germans. The w arrived in time from the Germans, but as you know they pronounced w then as now like our v. The German v is more like our f, so vergeltungswaffen is pronounced fergeltungsvaffen with a plosive f (like fer de lance). The accent is on 'gelt'.