Re: Sauerstoff, sauer, Stoff

Daniel al-Autistiqui <govende30@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

"Oxygen" seems to be an interesting case, though. Lavoisier was
French, but he coined his name for the element from Greek roots, not
French ones. An English or French speaker who is faced with the
word for "oxygen" would have to know Greek in order to make the
connection with "acid", although as Ruud demonstrates, many Dutch
and German speakers can easily see the "acid" in their word for
"oxygen". I wonder if misnomers are at times more likely to persist
if the thing is named in a "foreign" language (the way oxygen is in
English and French), thus obscuring the term's literal meaning.

A curious counterexample is the modern Hebrew word for oxygen,
humtsan, which was coined long after Lavoisier's mistake was
corrected, but perpetuates the misnomer, being derived from hamets
"sour". Surely the language institute might have thought of naming it
for fire instead!

In English, there are plenty of oxy compounds, but AFAIK in them it
always stands for oxygen, not acid (for which we have taken the
*Latin* word for sour). So we, too, must know a little Greek to see
the misnomer.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@xxxxxxxxxxx

||: The brain is supposed to stop what goes in the ears from :||
||: coming out the mouth. :||

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