51吃瓜

More about Barmecidal

It is forgivable, even rational鈥攂ut nevertheless incorrect鈥攖o think that Barmecidal means something like 鈥渒illing Barm or a Barm or a barm or barms,鈥� just as the adjective homicidal is formed from the noun homicide. Analyzing Barmecidal from back to front, we see the familiar adjectival suffix –al. The element –id or –ide is the not so familiar Greek noun suffix –id, a feminine patronymic suffix having the general sense 鈥渙ffspring of, descendant of,鈥� and used especially with the names of dynasties (such as Pisistratid, Abbasid, Attalid). The first two syllables, Barmec-, come from Persian Barmak, the name of a wealthy Iranian family that was very influential in Baghdad under the Abassid dynasty, and famous for its patronage of the arts and sciences. A Barmecidal banquet (or feast) refers to a story from the The Arabian Nights Entertainments; its 鈥渉ero鈥� is Ja’far ibn Yahya Barmaki (Ja’far al-Barmaki, also Giafar), who served a beggar a series of empty platters, pretending the empty platters were a sumptuous feast, a fiction or nasty joke that the beggar cheerfully accepted.

More about remora

Remora comes directly from Latin remora 鈥渉indrance, delay,鈥� composed of the prefix re– 鈥渂ack, backward, again鈥� and the noun mora 鈥渄elay, obstacle, pause.鈥� Other English words ultimately derived from mora include moratorium and demur. Remora is first recorded in English in the early 16th century as a name for the suckerfish, which has sucking disks on its head by which it can attach to the likes of sharks, turtles, and ships. This name is found in Late Latin in the 4th century a.d., so called because the fish was believed to slow the progress of ships. In Book 32, Chapter 1 of his Natural History, Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23鈥�79 ) gives mora as a classical Latin gloss of Greek echen脓is, literally meaning 鈥渉olding (back) a ship,鈥� and marvels at the supposed power of these fish: 鈥淏ut alas for human vanity!鈥攚hen their prows, beaked as they are with brass and with iron, and armed for the onset, can thus be arrested and rivetted to the spot by a little fish, no more than some half foot in length!鈥� (translated by John Bostock and Henry T. Riley, 1855). Remora in the archaic sense 鈥渙bstacle, hindrance, obstruction鈥� entered English by the early 1600s.

More about raison d'锚tre

The quasi-English phrase raison d’锚tre 鈥渞eason of being鈥� is still unnaturalized, retaining a French pronunciation of sorts. The English noun reason comes from Middle English reason, raisoun, raison (with still more spelling variants), from Old French reason, reason, raison, etc., from Latin 谤补迟颈艒 (inflectional stem 谤补迟颈艒n-), whose many meanings include 鈥渁 count, calculation, reckoning (as in business or accounts), theory (as opposed to practice), faculty or exercise of reason.鈥�

The French preposition de 鈥渙f, for鈥� becomes 诲鈥� before a vowel. De comes from the Latin preposition d脓 鈥渁way, away from, down, down from.鈥� The development from d脓 to Romance de, di 鈥渙f鈥� can be seen over the centuries in graffiti, epitaphs, and personal letters. St. Augustine of Hippo defended vulgarisms (which after all became standard in Romance): 鈥淏etter that grammarians condemn us than that the common people not understand.鈥�

脢迟谤别 is the French infinitive 鈥渢o be,鈥� and as is typical in French, it is much worn down from its original. In Old French the infinitive was estre, a regular development of Vulgar Latin essere 鈥渢o be,鈥� from Latin esse. Esse in Latin is an archaism, and the infinitives of nearly all other verbs end in –ere or –腻谤别, or –墨谤别. In Vulgar Latin, however, esse is an anomaly, and the Vulgus 鈥渢he common people鈥� simple regularized esse to essere. (Essere is even today the infinitive of the verb 鈥渢o be鈥� in standard Italian.) French loses a vowel after a stressed syllable; thus essere becomes essre (esre), and esre develops an excrescent consonant t between s and r for ease of pronunciation. Raison d’锚tre first appears in English in a letter written in 1864 by John Stuart Mill.