701
(Re)bracketing
(lemmy.world)
Was slightly mindblown whenl discovered this.
The two parts to the word "helicopter" are not "helil" and "copter", but "helico" meaning spiral, and "pter" meaning one with wings, like pterodactyl.
1044 AM-5Mar 2018 21,200 Retweets 67,241 Lkes
wait WHAT
Aderinthemadscientist: Wait, so... does -copter come "from" helicopter?
108echoes: Yep! This is called rebracketing. Another famous example would be"-burger": the original food item is named after the German city, (Hamburgl+(er], but semantically reinterpreted as (ham]+[burger].
Burger means citizens, and burg means castle.
No, Bürger means Citizen, Burger doesn't really exist as a german word, but would mean "someone from a castle" or "someone doing something with castles".
Those Umlaut-Dots change the pronounciation and the meaning, they are important!
This is discussing the English language, in English. Burger doesn't have umlauts in English.
Burger doesn't mean citizen in English either
Have you not heard the legend of the burger king?
It saddens me that this is a sensible response to an argument in 2023.