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Day: August 14, 2016
Why is “40” spelled “forty” and not “fourty”?
Thank you OED: four < *fowr < Middle English fower < feower < Old English feower forty since 15th century; fourty Middle English up to 17th century < Middle English fourti (and, in parentheses, forti) < feouwerti < Old English feowertig .So the forti spelling was apparently occasional in Middle English, but not regular. This […]
Why does it need to have uppercase letters and lowercase letters in Attic Greek?
The dirty not-so-secret of Attic Greek typography: it adopts the punctuation and capitalisation conventions of the European-language country it is printed in. So names or adjectives of nationalities (Hellenic/hellenic, Hellene/hellene) will be capitalised based on where it is printed. The quotation marks will follow local practice (and there’s a special place in hell for whoever […]
Is French word fiancailles translated in Hebrew as Erabon?
No. No no no. The Hebrew word ’erabon “pledge” (Strong 6162. עֲרָבוֹן (erabon)) shows up in Greek as arrabōn. In fact, it doesn’t quite: the word was borrowed in Classical times, so it was likely taken from Phoenecian instead. Within Greek, arrabōn ended up meaning “engagement, betrothal”, because a betrothal is a kind of pledge. […]
How many towns have or had the name Tripolis?
Let’s collate these responses against Tripoli (disambiguation) from Wikipedia: Tripoli, Libya Tripoli, Lebanon, the second largest city in Lebanon Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient city Tripolis ad Maeandrum, an ancient city on the borders of Lydia, Caria and Phrygia Tripolis (Pontus), an ancient city Tripoli, Iowa, a city in […]