Paging LIRA ... etymology of 'hospitality'

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-- Paging LIRA ... etymology of 'hospitality'

Posted by Swamper on Apr-25-2012 19:55:

Paging LIRA ... etymology of 'hospitality'

Does it imply that if the company you keep lacks hospitality that you may end up in the hospital?

Posted by Lira on Apr-25-2012 21:37:

I had never thought of the similarity

You're close enough, though.

Languages change and erode over time (such is life), and words acquire curious new meanings depending on the context they're used. Cretin used to mean "Christian", and silly was an old word for "blessed". And the same happened here with bizarre consequences.

The Latin word hospes could be used to refer both to the guests (reason why the Portuguese word for guest is "hóspede", from the accusative "hospitem"), and to the host (the word eroded a bit more in English, as you can see from the bold bits in the Latin example I posted).

Now, Latin had a suffix fetish, adding suffix after suffix as it saw fit. If you wanted to turn "hospes" into an adjective (i.e. the state of having guests, the quality of having guests), all you had to do was drop the final "s" and add "-(t)alis" so it could become an adjective. If the words "guestly" and/or "hostly" existed (my auto-correct thingy says they don't), it would mean the same "hospitalis" meant. A guestly place was called "hospitale"... and, unless you're a doctor, a nurse, or Jenny, you're pretty much a guest in a hospital. You come, people take care of you, and you sod off.

Remember I said Latin was crazy about suffixes? For whatever reason, they felt the need to turn the adjective into another noun, despite the fact it had already come from a noun. If it sounds stupid to you, just keep the word "manliness" in mind, and you can see how "manliness" and "man" don't mean quite the same thing, the former being more abstract than the latter. As I said, they had "hospitalis" and felt like turning it into a noun. "-itas", modern English "-ity" was the right suffix for the job. All you had to do was drop the final "s" and, voila, the property of having the quality of having guests (now that's a mouthful!) became hospitalitas - or, as we know it in English, hospitality!

Because words get a life of their own once they receive new affixes, "hospital" became the building where "guests" entered all the time; and hospitality became something else altogether. But, yeah, if your hosts don't take care of you, you might need a doctor to do just that

Posted by Swamper on Apr-26-2012 04:33:

Merci

Posted by Lira on Apr-26-2012 04:44:

De rien

Posted by itsamemario on Apr-26-2012 17:44:

quote:
Originally posted by Swamper
Merci

I read that as Nerd.

Posted by Halcyon+On+On on Apr-26-2012 17:56:

Well now that's settled, can we finally have a dialogue about how dj_alfi is without a doubt the most worthless member of the forum? Like nobody mentions it because it is so stupefyingly pointless, I don't even know why I am botheri

Posted by Lira on Apr-26-2012 18:11:

Posted by Swamper on Apr-26-2012 23:10:

quote:
Originally posted by dj_alfi
I read that as Nerd.

I read that as a useless reply to an otherwise worthwhile thread

Posted by srussell0018 on Apr-26-2012 23:12:

What Hal said

Posted by Lira on Apr-27-2012 03:10:

It's okay, guys

The funny thing about Alfi calling me a nerd is that actual nerds are quick to revoke any rights I may have to nerddom

Posted by richmary44 on Apr-27-2012 08:27:

You come, people take care of you, and you sod off.