February 19, 2004, 08:48
Hic et ubiqueOut of the mouths of "babes"
quote:
From Reader's Digest's "Humor in Uniform" section, regarding the military:
While on leave, my Marine buddy and I met two nursing students from Southern California. After chatting them up awhile, the conversation turned to what we did in the service. When we told them we were in the infantry, the girls seemed very impressed, giving us big smiles as they told us how sweet that was.
Since infantry and sweet are seldom used in the same sentence, I was a little confused. Until, that is, one of the girls said, "We admire any man who works with infants."
A laugh, of course. But is there a connection between
infant and
infantry?
February 19, 2004, 09:58
jheemThe gist of
infans in Latin is 'not able to speak', and from there to 'young' and from there to youth, foot soldier.
February 19, 2004, 20:09
KallehSo, that seems to indicate that there is a link between "infant" and "infantry." Dictionary.com has this:
"\In"fan*try\, n. [F. infanterie, It. infanteria, fr. infante infant, child, boy servant, foot soldier, fr. L. infans, -antis, child; foot soldiers being formerly the servants and followers of knights."
While I assume the definition of "infantry" has changed over the years, at least in the U.S., I don't think the "infantry" is really thought of as our "younger" soldiers. They are our foot soldiers, right?
[This message was edited by Kalleh on Fri Feb 20th, 2004 at 9:24.]
February 21, 2004, 18:12
KallehA colleague told me that it was standard practice for a French officers to call his men "mes enfants."
February 22, 2004, 03:40
Richard EnglishIt makes me wonder whether there is a similar link between adults and adultery :-)
Richard English
February 22, 2004, 07:49
jheemquote:
It makes me wonder whether there is a similar link between adults and adultery
There is, as well as with adolescent. (And, yes, I saw your smilie.)
February 22, 2004, 08:56
jerry thomasWord History: The adolescent grows up to become the adult. The words
adolescent and
adult ultimately come from forms of the same Latin word,
adolscere, meaning “to grow up.” The present participle of
adolscere, adolscns, from which adolescent derives, means “growing up,” while the past participle
adultus, the source of adult, means “grown up.” Appropriately enough,
adolescent, first recorded in English in a work written perhaps in 1440, seems to have come into the language before
adult, first recorded in a work published in 1531.
February 22, 2004, 09:17
jheemquote:
the same Latin word, adolescere, meaning “to grow up.”
Yes, Jerry, -
Vsc- is one of my favorite Latin suffixes. It's an inchoative one, signifying that some act is beginning to happen. The Latin
adoleo means 'to burn, sacrifice; smell'. (It occurs in other IE languages, but is pretty common in Latin.) So a teen is just beginning to burn ... I see in Pokorny that
alimentum 'nourishment' and
alimonia 'nourishment, sustenance' are related, too. (I suppose that
alma is, too.)