From: Ron Rhoades (rrhoades@jps.net)
Date: Fri Jul 17 1998 - 02:15:25 EDT
Richard Lindeman wrote:
> Thanks for the editors critique.
> MEA CULPA I have sinned. "Erasmian" is probably better English when it
> comes to a history of usage.
>Therefore, as a common person, I claim the right to say
> "Erasmic" if and when it pleases me. I am permitted to coin a new word
> am I not? People do it every day.
> By the way... does anyone know the derivation and root meaning of
> "-mic"? Perhaps that would decide the matter one way or the other.
Perhaps you mean -ic?
"-ic (1), adj, general conn 'of', hence 'belonging'to', whence also
'for' and 'with', hence 'connected with'; hence, further,
'characteristic of, like' or 'characterized by'....This suffix, whether
-ikos or -icus or -ique or -ick or -ic, is so common at every historical
and linguistic stage that, at all stages after the Gr (and perhaps there
too), it was virtually autonomous.
"Exx: angelic=angelick, angelyke: F angelique: L angelicus: Gr angelikos
(AGGELIKOS), from angelos (s angel-), AGGELOS, and angel; bucolic, L
bucolicus, Gr boukolikos; pudic, F pudique, L pudicus; volcanic, F
volcanique, It vulcanico, an -ico, i.e. It, reshaping of ML vulcanius, L
uulcanius, Vulcanian; vitriolic, F vitriolique; Byronic=Byron+-ic, prob
after Miltonic."--Eric Partridge's etymological dictionary.
Those last two are interesting in regards to your Erasmic.
Ron Rhoades
Nevada City
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