phipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (03/09/84)
"Consider" being derived from "observing the stars" ?
Well, I admit that that's what my *Webster's New Collegiate* says,
but I (an admitted amateur) didn't look there upon reading that claim.
In my *Cassell's New Compact Latin Dictionary*, I find:
sidus, -eris, n.: a constellation or a single star.
but
sido, sidere, sidi, sedi sessum: to sit or sink down, settle, alight;
to remain lying or fixed.
consido, -sidere, -sedi, -sessum: to sit down, to settle;
of ideas: to sink in.
--> considero, -are: to look at, regard carefully, contemplate.
Looks to me as if Latin provides a very direct path to English on that word.
Because Cassell's concerns itself solely with "classical" Latin,
that spoken from ~200 BC to AD 100, I think that the Webster's
people may have goofed on this one (unlikely as that may seem),
although the notion of
consider: (con- = cum) + sideribus [? supply correct ablative form]:
with the stars
(like contemplative shepherds watching the stars at night) has poetic appeal.
I'm sure there are some examples that support the original point better.
I agree that reading, for example, William F. Buckley's essays
with an unabridged dictionary on your lap is a far better way
to improve your English than is learning Latin.
My sister did the former, and now she's Executive Editor
of the Law Review at Florida State U.
My faded Latin vocabulary did help me bluff my way past
some unfamiliar words on the GREs, but that's hardly a sufficient reason
to take Latin -- learn a language because you want to learn something
about *it* and the corresponding culture.
I took 2 years of Latin in high school because it seemed like
the most entertaining language of those offered (and, frankly,
the school required that we take some foreign language before graduating).
One of these days, I want to escape the Indo-European mold
and try an oriental language (for something completely different.
-- Clay Phipps
--
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!fortune!phipps