# Deepest etymon list **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2016, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334 "2016-09-19T07:14:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/21 "2016-09-22T14:41:38Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > No joke, though, the word “pea” actually came about through the same process of illicit singularization that I joked about with cheese. The name of the vegetable is originally “pease” with an -s that is not a plural morpheme but derived from the root s of Latin _pisum_ (singular). It wasn’t supposed to be singularized by removing -s because it hadn’t actually been pluralized with -s in the first place. Same thing is true for cheese (from Latin _caesum_). Why pease got reanalyzed as a plural while cheese didn’t… is the question. > > Probably because peas can be handled as discrete spherules rolling about while cheese is just a lump, a mass. In the old days when pizzas hadn’t been invented yet and they didn’t have such a wide variety of cheeses all at once, most people could afford only one type of cheese at a time, so it didn’t lend itself to reanalysis as plural the way pease did. A late colleague of mine suggested that some day, “rice” might be similarly reanalyzed as a plural of “rie”. This suggestion was repeated in a book by Steven Pinker (who admitted to me that he had gotten it from my late colleague in a course called Mathematical Linguistics). ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/22 "2016-09-22T15:02:52Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > A late colleague of mine suggested that some day, “rice” might be similarly reanalyzed as a plural of “rie”. Hm, that seems an unlikely change to me. English words ending in a vowel sound are pluralized by adding a Z sound, not an S. So “ryes”, the plural of “rye”, is pronounced like “rise”, not “rice”. I don’t think there are any exceptions to this rule. “Rows”, “bays”, “lies”, “foes”, “boos”, etc. all have a Z sound at the end. The same is true when the word ends with a voiced consonant. Someone (it may actually have been Pinker) wrote that this indicates that the default rule for making English plurals is to add a Z. It’s only changed to an S when the word ends with an unvoiced consonant, where it would be difficult to follow it with a voiced sibilant, so we unvoice the sibilant. (The spelling of course is irrelevant to this argument.) –Mark ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/23 "2016-09-22T16:18:54Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > When they are different words. That’s how etymology goes: One word mutating into another. How semantic change weaves in and out of the process is very interesting and sometimes almost kaleidoscopic. This gets into the splitter/lumper debate, but I won’t call Latin _canis_ and PIE \*_kwon-_ (or English _hound_) different words. I’d call them different points on an evolutionary branch of the same word. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/24 "2016-09-22T20:33:12Z")
And if we do call synonym cognates different words, then the number of etymons is limited only by how finely we slice languages with time. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/25 "2016-10-05T02:15:22Z")
Laurasia (an ancient supercontinent) is named for Asia and Laurentia. Laurentia is named for the Laurentian Shield. The Laurentian Shield is named for the Laurentian Mountains. The Laurentian Mountains are named (I believe) for the St. Lawrence River (Fleuve St. Laurent in French). The St. Lawrence River is named for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Gulf of St. Lawrence is named for the Feast of St. Lawrence, the day in 1535 it was discovered by Cartier The Feast of St. Lawrence is named for St. Lawrence of Rome The personal name Lawrence (Laurentius in Latin) derives from the city of Laurentum in Italy Laurentum was named for its bay or laurel trees (laurus in Latin) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/26 "2016-10-05T07:03:17Z")
Excellent, bibliophage. Looks like you’ve beaten my best by two. Anyone else have a better one? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/27 "2016-10-05T10:01:22Z")
Treaty of Washington - NATO founding document Washington, D.C. - place George Washington William de Wassyngtona - George’s 16-gt grandfather Wassingatun, Tyre - place Wassa - person whose people founded Wassingatun village Wadhsige - source of personal name (victorious in hunt?) waþ - hunt (Old English) waithanjan - to hunt (proto-Germanic) waithjo - pursuit wadh - to go (PIE) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/28 "2016-10-07T03:28:34Z")
Good one, Septimus. Except I’m going to have to exclude William de Wassyngtona. It’s the same thing as rejecting 18 Louis’s of France. Only one person in a line of inheritance. BTW, what’s with the “Tyre” on the placename? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/29 "2016-10-07T03:53:55Z")
It’s a misprint for “Tyne”. Washington, the town, is in the local government district of Tyne and Wear (which was formed in 1974 out of parts of the counties Northumberland and Durham). ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/30 "2016-10-07T04:06:09Z")
Thanks, UDS. After thinking about it, I realized it could be extended a bit. Instead of Washington DC and the Treaty, you could have the first items on the list be Washington State Cougars (athletic teams of) Washington State University Washington (state) and there’s lots of variations you can do on those. Different things named after the school or different schools named for the state (although, really why would you want some inferior school like the University of Washington?) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/31 "2016-10-07T06:59:18Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > It’s a misprint for “Tyne”. Washington, the town, is in the local government district of Tyne and Wear OK, read up on it a bit. Why do I keep wanting to change that name to “wine and tear”? ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/32 "2016-10-08T11:25:37Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > It’s a misprint for “Tyne”. Washington, the town, is in the local government district of Tyne and Wear (which was formed in 1974 out of parts of the counties Northumberland and Durham). Well the history of counties names is long and sordid. Of course they had (complicated) church parishes and they rationalise and subdivide them up in modern times. But before parishes it was customary to use rivers to say where it is… Its on the river Wear, near the more famous river Tyne … In fact its near the famous Newcastle-On-Tyne. The 'ton ending might be a corruption of Tyne ??? But I looked it up and no one is certain why its called Washington. It might be the owner was OCD about cleanliness. Its in an area which is liable to have multiple languages involved … ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334/33 "2016-10-08T12:46:55Z")
I thought that the -ton ending just meant “town”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deepest-etymon-list/766334.md?page=1)