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Re: Gesserit [was: RE: Dune Conlang]

From:Grandsire, C.A. <grandsir@...>
Date:Friday, November 12, 1999, 13:47
FFlores wrote:
> > Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...> wrote: > > FFlores wrote: > > > How do you break _gesserit_ down? It looks absolutely non-Latin to me! > > > (Plus, how do you *pronounce* it?) > > > gero (1) gerere gessi gestum. Lit. (1) [to carry , bear]; esp. [to > > wear]. (2) [to bear, give birth to]. Transf., [to carry about, > > display an appearance]; 'personam gerere', [to act a part]; 'se > > gerere', [to conduct oneself (with adv.); to carry about, entertain > > a feeling; to carry on, conduct, manage business]; 'res gestae', > > [exploits, esp. warlike exploits]. > > Oh! I'd never imagined such amount of irregularity. But it turns > out that *this* must be the root of Spanish _gerente_ 'manager' > (as in a company's department). The semantics are strange, but > it seems to fit after you imagine a lot of meaning shifts... > _Gerente_ is practically a 'semantic isolate' (?); the root > is not used in Spanish, AFAIK, in any other word (well, there's > the verb _gerenciar_, of direct Latin origin, or maybe analogical), > and the name for the charge and the activity, _gerencia_. >
In French, we have "ge'rant" (cognate with Spanish _gerente_), the name of the activity is "ge'rance" and the verb is "ge'rer".
> --Pablo Flores > http://draseleq.conlang.org/pablo-david/
-- Christophe Grandsire Philips Research Laboratories -- Building WB 145 Prof. Holstlaan 4 5656 AA Eindhoven The Netherlands Phone: +31-40-27-45006 E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com