steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) (09/13/84)
[Please post any follow-ups to this only in net.nlang. The other newsgroups are only there because the original article was. Because I had to get this comment in first, I've moved the bug-food to another article :-)] > In English and French - the word "first" is not derived from the word > "one" but from an old word for "prince" (which means "foremost"). > Similarly, the English word "second" is not derived from the number > "two" but from an old word which means "to follow". There seems to be some confusion here: 'first' comes from 'fore' + 'est', ie 'most fore'. It then came to be used to mean 'prince' in some related languages (as it still does today, I believe, in Dutch: vorst, and German: fuerst). I imagine this developed in the same way that Americans talk of the 'first lady'. In French the word for first is 'premier', again not from a word for prince, but from Latin primus (first). The French word for prince is 'prince' from Latin 'Primus' + 'capere' (to take), and this French word is where the English comes from. However the 'pr' and 'fr' of the English and French words are cognate. In Old English 'other' was used for second. The word 'second' comes from French, but this does come from the Latin word 'secundus', following.
levy@fisher.UUCP (Silvio Levy) (09/17/84)
I believe "princeps", the Latin word for "prince", has nothing to do with "capere", but with "capus" -- thus, "first head". (Cf. "biceps", the muscle with two heads.)