[meteorite-list] searching for the correct terminology

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:29:36 -0500
Message-ID: <21270CC9CAAE48CC97EA5FFEC31A19F8_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Hi, Doug, List,

    Yes, it SHOULD mean that, but when was English
ever completely logical? Here; "de-" in "denuded" seems
to mean completely, thoroughly nude, as in stripped.

    Oddly enough in earlier English (middle English)
there was a prefix to be stuck on a verb to emphasize
the strength of the verb's action. "To-" was added. I have
seem several instances of "to-torn" used to mean not
just "torn" but "ripped to shreds."

    Earliest English (Anglo-Saxon) had many verb prefixes.
Modern English retains this love of sticking assorted
adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions onto helpless verbs.
Why are you "bewitched" when just being witched would
seem to be enough? Why "fix the car up"? Isn't it good
enough just to fix it?

    I mean, would you put up with that? Or, are there things
up with which you would not put?

    They're called "phrasal verbs":
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361lamont.html

    As for spalling, my ancient battered geological dictionary
defines "spalling" as: "the chipping or fracturing with an
upward heaving, of rock caused by a compressional wave
at a free surface." I think of flat flakes when I think of
spalling (which is not that often).


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>
To: "Mexicodoug" <mexicodoug at aim.com>
Cc: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] searching for the correct terminology


> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:14:40 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>PS ... denuded matrix would sound perfect to me, or stripped meteorite
>
> Ah, but wouldn't the prefix "de-" make the word mean "to make no
> longer nuded"?
> So an eroded meteorite should be said to have a nuded matrix...
>
> Okay, kidding. I know it is a real word (maybe different etymology
> for the
> "de-" prefix? Is this a job for Webbman?)
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Received on Fri 11 Sep 2009 03:29:36 PM PDT