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By: Rebecca,
on 9/19/2007
Blog:
OUPblog
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JacketFlap tags:
words,
A-Featured,
Lexicography,
dictionary,
Oxford Etymologist,
origin,
north,
south,
east,
west,
direction,
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By Anatoly Liberman
All over the world when people decide to name cardinal points, they look at the sky. Terms used for orientation should therefore be immediately transparent: we expect them to mean “toward sunrise,” “toward sunset,” “related to a certain constellation,” “in the direction of a certain wind,” and so forth. And indeed, Latin oriens “east” is akin to oriri “to rise,” while occidens “west” is a cognate of occidere “to fall down.” Speakers of Latin did not need an etymologist to interpret those words (such specialists existed even then, for example, Varro, the most famous of them all): sunrise and sunset tell their own story. But of the English words—east, west, north, and south—only the first reveals its past to the initiated. The other three are so opaque that after centuries of guessing their origin remains a matter of dispute. (more…)
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