Language Of Confusion: Flats, Part II

Got plenty more of these to go over, each weirder than the last. As you’re all aware, flat comes from the Proto Indo European plat-, to spread, which is from the root pele-, flat or to spread. So lets get to look at all the words that are somehow related to it. This week: words that still sound like flat but with a P instead of an F.
 
First, plate. It showed up in the mid thirteenth century, but back then it meant a flat sheet of gold or silver, before starting to mean armor made from sheets of metal, and then dinnerware in the fifteenth century. So yes, plate armor predates plates you eat off of. It comes from the Old French plate, a thin piece of metal, from the Medieval Latin plata (same meaning). That’s thought to be from the Vulgar Latin plattus, from the Greek platys, flat or broad, and of course that’s from plat-/pele-.
 
And of course there are a ton of other words with plat- in them. Platter showed up in the late thirteenth century with the same meaning we have for it—meaning platter predates plate as something for food. It comes from the Anglo French plater, from the Old French plate, and we all know where that comes from. Plateau, plate with an -au on the end, showed up in 1796, from the French plateau, which means plateau or more literally “table land”. It’s from the Old French platel, a flat piece of metal, from plat, flat surface, and, well, it all traces back to platys.
 
Next, words that begin with plat-. Platform showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the French plateforme, which means plat form or literally flat form. Platitude didn’t show up until 1812, where it meant “insipidity of thought”, meaning a platitude is something unoriginal. It’s from the French platitude, flatness, from plat, so a platitude is something that is metaphorically flat! Then there’s platinum the metal, whish also showed up in 1812. Its name is of Latin origin, but it was actually Spanish who shaped the word. See, in Spanish, the word for silver is actually plata, because it was shortened from the phrase plata d’argento, plate of silver, and plata just became silver. The metal platinum was considered by the Spanish to be an inferior silver, so it was called platino, and when the metal was officially named, it was because of that.
 
Finally today, platypus. It has plat in there, so it shouldn’t be that surprising. Platypus is another recent word, having shown up in 1799. It’s actually a Latin word from the Greek platypous, a mix of platys (flat) and pous (foot), so a platypus is a flat foot. Which is far from the most distinguishing thing about them.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

Language of Confusion: -Tude, Part I

I thought that the suffix -Tude would be an interesting thing to look at this week. Then I realized just how many words end in it and I was like, damn it. Damn it all. People just shove it at the end of words all the time because it’s a word forming element that appears in abstract nouns. It’s from the French -ude and classical Latin -udo, and here’s a bunch of words that end with it.

Attitude

Attitude showed up relatively recently in word terms, sometime in the mid seventeenth century, where it meant a position of a figure in a statue or painting, although it could mean a “mode of regarding” when it was short for the phrase attitude of mind. Apparently from there it morphed to the “posture of the body supposed to imply some mental state” and then in the nineteenth century behavior reflecting an opinion. It wasn’t until 1962 that it took on the arrogant, insolent connotation as a form of slang. Anyway, the word itself comes from the French attitude and Italian attitudine, disposition or posture. Before that it was the Late Latin aptitudinem, which, well, it looks like aptitude for a reason.

Aptitude

Which leads us to our next word. Aptitude showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Late Latin aptitudo, fitness, which is related to the abovementioned aptitudinem. That in turn is from the classical Latin aptus, suited or fitting. How...apt.

Gratitude

Gratitude showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Middle French gratitude or Medieval Latin gratitudinem, thankfulness, which can be found in the classical Latin gratus, grateful. But looking at grateful and gratitude lets you really see how different the suffix can make a word. Grateful is something you are, while gratitude is something you have!

Platitude

We have an exact year for this word: 1812, where it showed up meaning dullness. Really! It’s from the French platitude, which literally translates to flatness and comes from the Old French plat, which means flat. And is the origin word for plateau. Plat- is actually a Proto Indo European root word meaning to spread and actually shows up in a lot of words (pretty much anything with flat, plat, or plane in it, as well as more that we’re not getting into today). As for why platitude is another word for cliché, well, you know how dull those sayings are.

That’s it for this week. But don’t worry. There are many more -tude words to look into!

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

Dictionary.com

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

University of Ottawa, Canada

Orbis Latinus