Re: Certificate printer software? / turboprint
On Sat, Mar 09, 2002 at 04:19:05PM -0300, Daniel Toffetti wrote:
> On Friday 08 March 2002 19:50, Gary Turner wrote:
> > > The full version costs AFAIK EUR 20. (BTW, it often causes
> > > confusion that you have no English word for kostenlos / gratuit.
> > > Can't you invent one?)
> >
> --- snipped
> >
> > Optionally we could adopt "kostenlos" as we have "kaput," "dumkopf,"
> > and "blitzkrieg." Unlike the French, English speakers have no
> > problem using/stealing the words that best do the job. :-)
>
> I've seen many times that English native speakers use the Spanish word
> "gratis" to mean free as in beer.
Apparently, it isn't from Spanish, but traces back to Latin and French.
Both Latin and French heavily influenced English. Webster's says it
came into common usage in Middle English, so it's been in the language
for hundreds of years (since 15 century). Seems to be commonly related
to other words like grace, gratitude, gratuity, gratuitous, etc...
I'd suspect the Spanish "gratis", might have similar Latin roots ??
--
Eric G. Miller <egm2@jps.net>
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