724
(Re)bracketing
(lemmy.world)
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].
And there goes my free time! Thanks for the recommandation i'm deep into it now
RIP SoCal ;_;