Re: correct English usage

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:14:55 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> On Tue, 3 Apr 2012 15:41:20 +0000 (UTC) Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>
> dijo:
> 
>>But the above does not imply that using "posterior" in the above stanza
>>is wrong. It can be improved (we are not writers not editors) but not
>>incorrect. Those "old Latin" lovers (me included :-P) would even use the
>>term "ulterior" for the said meaning.
> 
> (OT)
> 
> Latin POST, SUPRA and ULTRA meant 'after, following,' 'above, over,' and
> 'beyond. All came into English as prefixes. And English borrowed so many
> thousands of Latin words which already contained them as prefixes that,
> over time, English speakers just reanalyzed them as English prefixes.
> 
> The interesting part is that Latin applied endings to words in order to
> form the comparative and superlative (like English -er and -est). Thus,
> POSTERIOR, SUPERIOR and ULTERIOR meant 'more after, more following,'
> 'more above, more over,' and 'more beyond. Languages do funny things,
> especially when borrowing from another language. Instead of becoming the
> comparative forms they became non-prefix adjectives, and lost the
> comparative meaning.

Yes, and it's the same in Spanish. 

We now use the same word as an adjective for expressing 
"distance" (either "physical" or "time" based) in a more "poetical" form.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón