Tag Archives: history

The Etymology of Education (inspired by @cherrymp)

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  Have you ever joined an … If not, I heartily heartily recommend it.  Today, we explored “Dogme with adult beginners” , and I just finished writing my first summary.  Brilliant chat, and there was one tweet that really caught my language geek eye (just like a few months ago in the ELTchat Etymology: Dogme Flies Unite! post). I’d like to elaborate on @cherrymp‘s comment about the etymological roots of Education. The base is”duct” and we can see it in tons of modern english words below. The latin root is DUX, and actually brings us the english word Duke, as (…)

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y i ♥ etymology

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“How it is that any thing so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.”   – T.H. Huxley   Life is kinda funny, isn’t it ?     Do you ask yourself these questions as often as I do ? Why am I here ?   Who am I ?   Where am I going ?   What’s the point ?       I don’t know if there are ANSWERS, though I know there are hints to (…)

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my FAVORITE etymology EVER [1-min blog blast]

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    Reward yourself with a 20-second pause and wonder with the words   click on the wordle image below and imagine…   what might be the connection between such lingual diversity?             All of these words arise from a 4000+ year-old Indo-European root, leg, which means to “gather”. In latin it becomes legere, in greek, legein.   TO GATHER  ???   In latin, legere orignally meant to gather fruit.  Over time, as we know words evolve too, it slowly morphed and added these meanings— to collect, to assemble, to choose, to form an impression, to (…)

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