Re: The opposite..


This had, of course, struck me. I don't think that Patri- and Matri-
could be considered as prefixes. Could you give us a short etymology of
matrimony and patrimony, please?

I don't know the source of the -mony part, but matr- and patr- closely
resemble the Proto-Indo-European root form (that's a coincidence, since
we got them from Latin, not directly from PIE).

Nonsense, Peter.
Yes, you spoke nonsense when you denied that "evolution" and
"devolution," in ordinary contemporary English, are not opposites.

(denied that they _are_ opposites, of course)

Most dictionaries say that "-mony" comes from "Moneta", the temple of Juno where coins were struck, while Patr- and Matr- are respectively words for "father" and "mother". But that's just what they say. I'm sure Peter has a much more elaborate story to tell us, and he's just being shy.

It's the bit about putting them together that is special. The business deals they tell about are very different because of the structure of the society in which the words arose.

In ordinary comtemporary *US* English, maybe. They aren't seen as
opposites in the UK where devolution and devolved are primarily used in
relation to government systems on a more local level than the totality
of the UK and the Westminster parliament, eg the devolved Scottish
parliament and the devolved Welsh assembly. In a sense these governments
could be seen as both devolved and evolved.

Neither Matt nor I is a UKan; I believe the Mr Briggs who initially
complained is.

Irrelevant, still. English and English are not all that different from each other, though we do occasionally stumble over words like "truck".

--
Matthew H. Fields http://www.umich.edu/~fields
Music: Splendor in Sound
.

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