hybrid word: a sill

 

 

y term

Page 3 of English Words from Latin Clavis

Several medical words derive from Latin clavis ‘key.’ Every doctor’s office used to have a shiny metallic auto-clave, although not as large as the laboratory size shown below. An autoclave is a self-locking device used to sterilize instruments by means of steam pressure. Autoclaving, also called steam sterilization, is the use of pressurized steam to kill agents of infection and denature proteins. This kind of “wet heat” is today considered the most dependable method of sterilizing laboratory equipment and decontaminating biohazardous waste.

Autoclaves do not remove chemical contamination.

The roots of autoclave look like this: autoclave < autos Greek, self + clavis Latin, key.

 

HYBRID WORD: A SILLY TERM

When an English word has been created from the roots of two different languages, it is sometimes—by pompous, stuffy, foolish linguists—called a hybrid word. What a meaningless label for any lexical item in the great English word hoard, where thousands upon thousands of English words are such hybrids. The very nature of English word-making bids us borrow roots wherever and whenever we need them. Indeed, by far the majority of English words are hybrid. The specialized vocabularies of the sciences could not get along and have never gotten along without hybrids. The term is thus otiose and quite silly.

Proponents of such a label are the same semiliterate fussbudgets who would tell us that in a compound scientific noun both constituent roots ought to be from the same language. Thus, when we need a word to describe a self-locking device, linguistic propriety demands—so they say—that we make the word up using two Greek roots, not one Greek and one Latin root. 'Auto' is of Greek origin, and so the root for key ought to have been from Greek too. An autoclave would have been more properly then an *autokleididion—or some such monstrosity. Or, had we proceeded in pure Latin mode, English might have rejoiced in the buffoonish term *ipsoclaviculator. What a bunch of nincompoops these hybridists are! Words are born as they are born: exquisitely formed, crippled, lop-eared, web-footed, street-smudged, cross-eyed. If users find new terms inappropriate or awkward to use, history has shown such clumsy inventions disappear quickly. 

English has the entire world and history of languages to borrow from, and we shall continue to be the great thief of tongues. That is the glory of our vocabulary, the largest word-stock of any language on earth. The hybrid-labelers are purveyors of poppycock and twaddle, people with no real lives of their own, who attempt to fill their empty days schoolmarming to death other people's use of language. Naturally, the criticism of the use of the term hybrid by your humble author does not constitute an admission that he has no life!

 

 

In Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and in the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, a mysterious black pillar is found at a lunar site named Moon Base Clavius. The base is named after an adjacent moon crater, itself commemorating a well-known 16th century mathematician, Christopher Clavius, proposer of the leap-year rule. About 300 mathematicians have features on the earth's moon, mostly craters, named after them. One can easily find net photographs of the vast Clavius crater.

Discovery of the monolith at Moon Base Clavius in Stanley Kubrick's pivotal epic "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Here’s a net bio. of Clavius.

Christopher Clavius entered the Jesuit Order in 1555 and received his education within the Order. He attended the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Following this he went to Italy and studied theology at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome.

He remained at the Collegio Romano where he taught mathematics. Except for a period in Naples around 1596 and a visit to Spain in 1597, Clavius was to remain Professor of Mathematics at the Collegio Romano for the rest of his life.

The Julian leap-year rule created 3 leap years too many in every period of 385 years. As a result, the actual occurrence of the equinoxes and solstices slowly moved away from their calendar dates. The date of the spring equinox determines the date of Easter so the church began to press for reform.

Christopher Clavius proposed that Wednesday, Oct. 4, 1582 (Julian) should be followed by Thursday, Oct. 15, 1582 (Gregorian). He proposed that leap years occur in years exactly divisible by four, except that years ending in 00 must be divisible by 400 to be leap years. This rule is still used today and is so accurate that no further reform of the calendar will be necessary for many centuries.

 

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