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(Re)bracketing (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by ReadyUser31@lemmy.world to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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Was slightly mindblown whenl discovered this.

The two parts to the word "helicopter" are not "helil" and "copter", but "helico" meaning spiral, and "pter" meaning one with wings, like pterodactyl.

1044 AM-5Mar 2018 21,200 Retweets 67,241 Lkes

wait WHAT

Aderinthemadscientist: Wait, so... does -copter come "from" helicopter?

108echoes: Yep! This is called rebracketing. Another famous example would be"-burger": the original food item is named after the German city, (Hamburgl+(er], but semantically reinterpreted as (ham]+[burger].

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[-] youRFate@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You have to differentiate there, Bürger (citizen) is different from Burg (castle) in German, and Hamburg is written without the ü, as it comes from castle, not citizen.

[-] emberwit@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

The word for citizen derives from the word for castle though.

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Castler King.

this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
724 points (98.7% liked)

Microblog Memes

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