It seems that rubbing shoulders with you folks is turning me into a novice etymologist. (go figure, I always thought they worked with bugs...)I'm too eratic to be any good at it, but I find I am always currious to see where new, (to me), words originated. Sometimes when guessing at the original language of a word to run through a translator for a definition,I can't help but try out a few more languages to see if there is a hit when my guess is wrong. Mostly I just end up frustrated by not knowing the origin of the root of the word I'm looking up.
I would like to see a translate to [all] option. It should be fairly simple for a program to find the root of any given word, then find its language of origin and then expound from that to form an 'actual' starting point for idjits like me spinning our wheels in the mud.
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Idjit:colloquial derivation of Idiot: from the Greek word idiwtes (idiotes), which refers to a person disinterested in participating in democracy and public life. These people were viewed as selfish, contemptable and stupid as they were more concerned with their daily personal affairs than they were of the good of the society. Later in the Middle Ages the word took on additional connotations associated with being stupid, such as being mentally incapable.
Doh!See what I mean?That word is completely wrong!
I'm like, totally, all about the good of society.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 15 2011 Online etymology tool http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?Specialist tools for specialist jobs, 2 fries! [DrBob, Mar 15 2011] There are sometimes rival etymological theories. It may be my current mental state but i haven't been able to grasp your idea firmly. If it's "translate to all", what is "all"? Is it a series of pictograms?-- nineteenthly, Mar 15 2011 sp: Eejit
;-)
(Oh no - I've just used a smiley in the HB. What have i become!?)-- Jinbish, Mar 15 2011 //Oh no - I've just used a smiley in the HB. What have i become!?// - [Jinbish] used a smiley! LOL-- hippo, Mar 15 2011 // What have i become!? //
Ostracised.-- 8th of 7, Mar 15 2011 Ostracised, meaning 'about the size of an Ostrich', early 13c., from O.Fr. 'ostruce', from V.L. 'avis struthio', from L. 'avis' "bird".-- DrBob, Mar 15 2011 I guess that [all] would refer to every translation in the data base for a given word and perhaps highlight the language of origin of the word being searched if it is not English. It's just that English adopts so many words from other cultures that it is sometimes hard to tell where they came from. : ]<bookmarks [link]>-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 15 2011 random, halfbakery