Enmos
Valued Senior Member
extraordinary and genitals
- Thread starter Orleander
- Start date
There is no verb "ficere" in Latin, but there are a lot of verbal forms with prefixes, so the Latin for "fig" (or fig-tree), got used for all sorts of things, mainly to do with food, or providing something, authority, ownership etc, but with a common thread of meaning of making or effecting something, good or bad.
Quite close to the meaning of facere (probably a cognate), but these prefixed verbs that all have a common stem - ficio, ficere - don't have an actual verb stem, there's only ficus, and the adjective magnificus, which became the verbal form magnifico, magnificare, magnificavi, magnificatus sum: to prize greatly, to esteem.
Starting at the wrong end of the alphabet, there's praeficere, from which "proffer, proficient, prefect".
And officere: to impede or block, from which "officiate, official, office", etc.
Sufficere: to provide, to suffice, which gives "sufficient, suffer", etc.
Then there's inficere: to stain or spoil, from which we get the verb "infect". And deficere: to leave without sufficiency, from which "defecate, defeat, deficient".
Adficere: to influence, to afflict or weaken. This is now "affect", and "afflict". (Edit: no it isn't, afflict comes from flectere - to bend or turn aside)
Conficere: accomplish, complete or compose. Gives us "confection, confess, confiscate".
Efficere: produce or bring about, from which: "effect, efficient".
Reficere: restore or rebuild. Refectory.
There might be a few more.
Quite close to the meaning of facere (probably a cognate), but these prefixed verbs that all have a common stem - ficio, ficere - don't have an actual verb stem, there's only ficus, and the adjective magnificus, which became the verbal form magnifico, magnificare, magnificavi, magnificatus sum: to prize greatly, to esteem.
Starting at the wrong end of the alphabet, there's praeficere, from which "proffer, proficient, prefect".
And officere: to impede or block, from which "officiate, official, office", etc.
Sufficere: to provide, to suffice, which gives "sufficient, suffer", etc.
Then there's inficere: to stain or spoil, from which we get the verb "infect". And deficere: to leave without sufficiency, from which "defecate, defeat, deficient".
Adficere: to influence, to afflict or weaken. This is now "affect", and "afflict". (Edit: no it isn't, afflict comes from flectere - to bend or turn aside)
Conficere: accomplish, complete or compose. Gives us "confection, confess, confiscate".
Efficere: produce or bring about, from which: "effect, efficient".
Reficere: restore or rebuild. Refectory.
There might be a few more.
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Fraggle can't help. He's gullible when it comes to syllables, besides he's late for the syllabus.
Where's Vkothii?
Where's Vkothii?
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Recticere, rectal, rector, rectum?..sure didn't do 'em any good!
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I don't know anyone who has ever pronounced it extra-ordinary. All the people I know pronounce it ex-traor-din-ary. :shrug:
And I appreciate your input on my questions. I really do learn from them.
How many syllables in genitalia?
5...wrong..two, pack age
5...wrong..two, pack age
I bet I know the origin of your "roots". We talk of an animal being in rut. How's that for a guess ?
I think spud confuses his wart with a penis.
Sure but someone elses penis...chuckle.
say this in your best Aussie accent " strewth mate, warts thairt ya'v gawt in ya pairnts sunshine?"
Speaking on Orleander's behalf, my answer would be: A vagina covered in warts that need scratching.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
I was just checking to see if anyone was paying attention.
That sounds like the British pronunciation with a couple of pints added.
That's not a pronunciation guide but a template for how to hyphenate it if you have to. And it does imply what we've always called the "British pronunciation," with the first A silent. (Actually in the UK they're both silent.)
Merriam-Webster.com gives the pronunciation and they render it as five syllables, but then they list a secondary alternative pronunciation as all six syllables. Besides, "extraordinary" is one word, so all those letters are indeed "from the same word."
I assume you're still being whimsical. But for the folks who are reading this, look up the etymology of the suffix -fy. It comes from Latin -ficare. That's not a word, but a combining form derived from facere, "to make, to do," and ficare carries the same meaning: "to make, to do."
It suffered some phonetic alteration along the way but Latin is famous for that: rex/regina, vertex/verticalis, agricola/agricultura, naus/navalis, puer/puella, etc.
Glorify, beatify, terrify, petrify and mortify mean "to make glorious, blessed, afraid, stony and dead," and have nothing to do with figs.
This isn't the first time you and I have had vastly different experiences with American English pronunciation. I spent most of my life in Chicago and the Southwest. Perhaps when I hear other regional pronunciations I don't hear them right.
No whimsy is being whimsied here, I assure one and all.Fraggle said:
The Latin magnificus has absolutely nothing (except as possibly a cognate) to do with the verb facere. There is no "ficare" - it's the root of magnificare (which is not spelt magni facere).
If "great fig-tree" does come from facere, there's a serious need to explain i) why verbs with a ficere root don't conjugate like facere ii) Why there are loads of prefixed verb forms with the ficere root, and iii) why don't we say "effacient" or "offacial", instead of "efficient" and "official", etc.
There's a phonetic gap between "fic" and "fac" that doesn't get stepped over easily.
But do correct me if I'm wrong. I'll sit here and chew away on some figs (that's fici, if you're in Rome), meanwhile.
Whoops, I take some of that back: "ficar(e)" is an adjective (not a verb), it means "fig-like".
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I been an' got figgy with a Latin dictionary, and there is a lot of evidence of the importance of ficus in the early Latin language, figs had a big cultural significance (and not just in the Italian peninsula), given the following points:
Apart from magnificus which meant: "sumptuous, grandiloquent", there are some other "fig-words".
You'd think "great fig-tree" would have had the apposite "not-so-great fig-tree", and there is maleficus (bad, malign, criminal), from "bad" + "fig-tree", but that has beneficus as an apposite.
There are some others, but all of these had adjectival forms, which in Latin is usually by adding an "-ar" suffix (which also signifies: "means, or special place"), so maleficus becomes maleficar, which then is the verb maleficare - except there is no such Classical verb, but the adjective exists. Since the ficere verbs are formed differently, there must be another step.
Ficere (another verb that never existed - "to be fig-treed", which became "to give meaning to", "to put in place", that is: figere), had the "-er" suffix because "-ar" signifies "place", not "action", in early Latin (and mostly in Classical Latin). To say "at the fig-tree", is ficar.
Words like efficere meant "from the fig-tree", sufficere meant "under the fig-tree". The verb "to suffer" meant "to allow, to permit, to give permission or authority to", it's intransitive, like all the ficere verbs. So if you say "sufficio", in Classical Latin, you're saying "I'm under the fig-tree" - i.e. "I'm in the special place, I have authority, etc".
So that's the other step - to signify transitivity, add an -ar, for intransitive meaning, add an -er.
Go figure.
Apart from magnificus which meant: "sumptuous, grandiloquent", there are some other "fig-words".
You'd think "great fig-tree" would have had the apposite "not-so-great fig-tree", and there is maleficus (bad, malign, criminal), from "bad" + "fig-tree", but that has beneficus as an apposite.
There are some others, but all of these had adjectival forms, which in Latin is usually by adding an "-ar" suffix (which also signifies: "means, or special place"), so maleficus becomes maleficar, which then is the verb maleficare - except there is no such Classical verb, but the adjective exists. Since the ficere verbs are formed differently, there must be another step.
Ficere (another verb that never existed - "to be fig-treed", which became "to give meaning to", "to put in place", that is: figere), had the "-er" suffix because "-ar" signifies "place", not "action", in early Latin (and mostly in Classical Latin). To say "at the fig-tree", is ficar.
Words like efficere meant "from the fig-tree", sufficere meant "under the fig-tree". The verb "to suffer" meant "to allow, to permit, to give permission or authority to", it's intransitive, like all the ficere verbs. So if you say "sufficio", in Classical Latin, you're saying "I'm under the fig-tree" - i.e. "I'm in the special place, I have authority, etc".
So that's the other step - to signify transitivity, add an -ar, for intransitive meaning, add an -er.
Go figure.
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I don't know anyone who has ever pronounced it extra-ordinary. All the people I know pronounce it ex-traor-din-ary. :shrug:
And I appreciate your input on my questions. I really do learn from them.
Same here. Everyone I know says "ex-traor-di-nar-y". Maybe it depends on location in the U.S. :scratchin:
I would also contend that it's far more likely that the fig came first.
Although I haven't found the Indo-European root (the word ficus, fici is a Latin-only root noun), I would say that facere is derived from ficar, via a verbal noun. There is the obvious -ficare/ficere to figere link. And then there's words like figura (figure or form) and figulus (potter or builder). Fici goes to figi which leads to fidi, which is "trust", and fuga(re), which is "banish". An etymological food-chain.
P.S. Anyone wanting to explore the religious/sacerdotal side of figs can try a string search of "ficar" "ficer", and "fici" "figi", etc on any Vulgate Latin Biblicology, they might find...?
Although I haven't found the Indo-European root (the word ficus, fici is a Latin-only root noun), I would say that facere is derived from ficar, via a verbal noun. There is the obvious -ficare/ficere to figere link. And then there's words like figura (figure or form) and figulus (potter or builder). Fici goes to figi which leads to fidi, which is "trust", and fuga(re), which is "banish". An etymological food-chain.
P.S. Anyone wanting to explore the religious/sacerdotal side of figs can try a string search of "ficar" "ficer", and "fici" "figi", etc on any Vulgate Latin Biblicology, they might find...?
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For example:
Literally:
"Not will they a temple of fig-trees, and another will live: not will they plant, and another tend: following as days of the wood, will be days of the people/poplar-trees of my own, and manual work them they will prohibit" (- or "their work will be obsolete/long-lived". This is the ambiguous Latin bit).
In plain English:
"They will not build (a house) for another to inhabit, nor will they plant and another will tend (the crop): as the wood grows (and is not cut) until the right day, accordingly there will be a particular day for my people, (on which) they will not perform manual work."
Or the last part says "As the days of a tree, will be the days of my trees/people, accordingly shall be the long-lived works of their hands."
In fact it says both things, but that's Latin for ya.
Isiah 65:22 said:
Literally:
"Not will they a temple of fig-trees, and another will live: not will they plant, and another tend: following as days of the wood, will be days of the people/poplar-trees of my own, and manual work them they will prohibit" (- or "their work will be obsolete/long-lived". This is the ambiguous Latin bit).
In plain English:
"They will not build (a house) for another to inhabit, nor will they plant and another will tend (the crop): as the wood grows (and is not cut) until the right day, accordingly there will be a particular day for my people, (on which) they will not perform manual work."
Or the last part says "As the days of a tree, will be the days of my trees/people, accordingly shall be the long-lived works of their hands."
In fact it says both things, but that's Latin for ya.
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Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Ok.. lolBesides, "extraordinary" is one word, so all those letters are indeed "from the same word."
I meant the words "extraordinary is made up of, "extra" and "ordinary".
I wasn't questioning any pronunciation, though, but the orthographic syllables of the word.
Extra is a conjoined Latin word, from ex: outside and iter, itineris: a journey.
Ordinary is from ordinarius, an adverb, meaning regular, the -us bit got dropped.
Put that together, you get: "outside a journey from the regular". Or: "a journey from outside regular".
And to, er, hang it all out, figuratively that is, "genitals" is another Latin beauty, from gens gentis, a clan or people, a tribe, and talis: "following", "as such".
So gens + talis - actually geni, the ah, genitive, or "of the people", and you got: "that which follows of the people", or "the thing from which the people follow", type of thing - genitalia, in other words.
Guess what "italia" ended up being used for?
Ordinary is from ordinarius, an adverb, meaning regular, the -us bit got dropped.
Put that together, you get: "outside a journey from the regular". Or: "a journey from outside regular".
And to, er, hang it all out, figuratively that is, "genitals" is another Latin beauty, from gens gentis, a clan or people, a tribe, and talis: "following", "as such".
So gens + talis - actually geni, the ah, genitive, or "of the people", and you got: "that which follows of the people", or "the thing from which the people follow", type of thing - genitalia, in other words.
Guess what "italia" ended up being used for?
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I don't know anyone who has ever pronounced it extra-ordinary. All the people I know pronounce it ex-traor-din-ary. :shrug:
And I appreciate your input on my questions. I really do learn from them.
Try finding a recording of Nat King Cole singing L-O-V-E.
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
Six sylables. I think most Americans pronounce it that way, unless they are trying to impress by mimicking the British pronunciation.