Provided you speak greek, how would you respond if someone used the word “ταχυδρόμος” for someone crossing a distance fast, not for the postman?

By: | Post date: 2016-06-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

To explain the question:

Tachy-dromos, “quick-runner”, was originally a word for a courier. Couriers deliver mail, and tachy-dromos is now the word for mailman.

If someone uses tachy-dromos in its original original meaning of “fast runner”, rather than its community accepted meaning of “mailman”, how do I react?

I react by telling them to stop being Humpty Dumpty. Words don’t mean whatever you decide them to mean, and they don’t mean whatever the original etymology of the word says, even if the etymology is transparent. Just as an undertaker in English no longer means “entrepreneur”, someone who takes on an “under-taking”. Words mean what the community has ended up saying they mean.

There’s an out with that kind of compound: you can pause between the compound words: “He’s a quick. runner. Not a quickrunner.” Like in English, if I were to say “an underTAKE. -er. Not an undertaker.” That would try and trigger the etymological reading in the listener.

And would likely fail.

Leave a Reply

  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

  • March 2024
    M T W T F S S
    « Jul    
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    25262728293031
%d bloggers like this: