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Igel

(36,538 posts)
6. Often words drift from their etymology.
Mon Aug 21, 2023, 05:48 PM
Aug 2023

"Calculus" has cognate in English "chalk." It's a little piece of limestone that was used for keeping count.

Hence it came to mean "reckoning" or "counting."

It was picked up for "differential calculus". But includes, now kidney stones.

At the same time, somebody who did counting was a calculator. Now it's the bit of electronic hardware. Oops, a phone app.

Words change meaning.

Even "tribe" in its current anthropological meaning managed to depart a bit from its original meaning (referring to one of the three parts of the original Latin state--think Etruscans). Or its original meaning in English, first applied to the tribes of Israel.

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