I understand that nonetymological / unetymological mean "not etymological" – i.e. something which doesn’t have any roots in formation. But I am unable to grasp its significance – does it mean "absolute" words which can’t be broken down, and hence have no etymology? Or words that don’t have any roots (how can something not have … Read more
I’m learning the Indonesian language, and they took the word ‘antonim’ from Dutch (antonym in English), but changed and expanded the meaning. In Indonesian, ‘green’ is an antonym of ‘yellow’ and ‘February’ is an antonym of ‘January’. Which surprised me, but also got me thinking that I don’t know how these words are related to … Read more
Where did this term originate from? According to Etymonline.com, it originates from O.E. eaca, which means to “increase”. However, I can’t see how the “n” got stuck in there too. Does anyone have any relevant information? Answer Metanalysis strikes again. The regular outcome of OE eaca would be ick, as in ickname. At some point … Read more
Possible Duplicate: “A whole nother” way of looking at things I recently learned that the word apron was once apparently napron, but the current form has resulted from accidental morphing of a napron to an apron. What is this kind of mistake called? (I’d also like to know of others, if there are any.) Answer … Read more
People say this so much (instead of “another whole” way, etc.) that I wonder how it got started. How did “another whole…” get changed to “a whole nother…”? Answer This is an example of metanalysis: taking two words that occur in close proximity, and re-analyzing them so that the word boundary changes position. In this … Read more
