View Full Version : Words
I have just posted on a different thread the word incomprehensible.
Someone tell me the root of that word and I cannot give you a prize but you will have my admiration.
It is also, as far as I know the English language word with the most prefixes and suffixes.
helenwyler
28-May-08, 23:04
Bluenose, the word 'comprehend' derives from Latin 'prehendere', meaning to catch hold of (hence prehensile toe). The prefix 'com' means completely, so 'comprehendere' means to grasp/ seize mentally (comprehend), and extends to mean include/encompass.
Hope that helps! :)
Sorry you have to go back farther/or deeper than that.
And I will have to look this up but I do not think the root is greek or roman although the suffixes and prefixes are.
Portuguese is a latin based language. We also use the word "compreende". "Prende" is to catch ( we loose one e and the h from the latin). The comp part would be derived from completely ...... at least I believe so.
Incomprehensible.....meaning difficult to uderstand, unclear, unintelligible. In spannish comprende means understand?
Colin Manson
30-May-08, 06:37
In spannish comprende means understand?
Yes it is.
Comprensible is Understandable.
Incomprensible is Incomprehensible
northener
30-May-08, 09:50
....I don't understand......
With apologies to Helen the word should have been incomprehensibility. That may look insubstantial but it does make a difference.
I quote from Bill Bryson, (who I met once in Hay-on-Wye), from Mother Tongue, "the word incomprehensibility, which consists of the root, -hen- and eight affixies and infixes: in, -com-,-pre-, -s-, -ib-, -il-, -it-, and y.
Read the book it is both enlightening and funny, as are all his books.
With apologies to Helen the word should have been incomprehensibility. That may look insubstantial but it does make a difference.
I quote from Bill Bryson, (who I met once in Hay-on-Wye), from Mother Tongue, "the word incomprehensibility, which consists of the root, -hen- and eight affixies and infixes: in, -com-,-pre-, -s-, -ib-, -il-, -it-, and y.
Read the book it is both enlightening and funny, as are all his books.
Incomprehensibility means to be incomprehensible which is from the latin word- incomprehensibilis which means impossible to catch or understand and now I'm going round in circles so am going to stop :). That was a waste of time.
Finally it's explained. I knew the question, had read it before but couldn't remember where so thanks for that bluenose. The only Bill Bryson book I still have is The Thunderbolt Kid, gave the others away.
percy toboggan
08-Jun-08, 08:19
I like Bill Bryson too...in fact two of his books are amongst the best I've ever read.
Notes from a Small Island, and the other one's title eludes me....he was in Europe, in fact he was all over it.
As for the thread itself, I'm afraid I can't understand it.
Bluenose was not wanting the meaning of the word incomprehensibility but rather its components similar to analysing a sentence and breaking it down into nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives etc., just as we used to do at school when the teacher gave us a sentence to "parse".
Thanks for that Bluenose; very interesting! Time I read Bill Bryson methinks....
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.