[HN Gopher] Affixes: The Building Blocks of English
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Affixes: The Building Blocks of English
        
       Author : everybodyknows
       Score  : 116 points
       Date   : 2025-02-26 18:43 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.affixes.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.affixes.org)
        
       | sebmellen wrote:
       | Is there anything like this just for medical terminology?
        
         | adzm wrote:
         | I'd say it's almost a subset. In fact in the introduction it
         | explicitly mentions medical terms as an inspiration.
         | https://www.affixes.org/introduction.html
         | 
         | > It was in the summer of 1995, while my former business
         | partner and I were studying the displays in a medical museum in
         | order to advise how to improve them, that he remarked that one
         | of the things needed to enhance visitors' enjoyment would be an
         | explanation of the mysteries of medical terminology: the
         | difference, say, between an -itis and an -algia, or between
         | words starting in haemo- and hepato-. That conversation stayed
         | with me. Increased exposure to the complexities of technical
         | language, and to the diversification of knowledge that has led
         | to sub-disciplines such as palaeophytogeography and
         | psychoneuroendocroimmunology, whose names pile element upon
         | element, reinforced a belief that a concise work was needed
         | that interpreted the main word-forming affixes in English.
         | 
         | Also the theme for medical and surgery terms
         | https://www.affixes.org/themes/medsur.html
        
         | theresistor wrote:
         | My father was a Classics professor, and one of the most popular
         | classes he taught was "Latin Terminology for Medicine and Law".
        
       | o11c wrote:
       | Some entries don't seem as exhaustive as others I've seen. For
       | example, there are only 2 entries for "a-": a-1 is for Greek
       | "without" and a-2 is presumably supposed to combine all the
       | various Old English senses though it only mentions one
       | (Wiktionary, for example, mentions 5: "up", "on", "with", "of",
       | and one without etymology).
       | 
       | But even if we allow that mixture, we're definitely still missing
       | the Latin ones:
       | 
       | ex- turning into a- (blame the French) is admittedly rare so
       | might be out of scope.
       | 
       | ad- turning into a- however is extremely common and definitely
       | should not be merged with the Old English derivations (even
       | though "on" often takes a similar meaning). This is noted on the
       | ad- page but it needs to be mentioned under a- too.
       | 
       | ab- turning into a- is less common due to only happening before a
       | few letters, but is not even mentioned on the ab- page.
        
         | cjmcqueen wrote:
         | I hope you shared this comment on the site.
         | 
         | Not saying you're doing this, but I feel we've turned into a
         | critical culture and not a supportive culture more and more.
         | Criticism is not as helpful as people pitching in to help
         | build.
        
         | euroderf wrote:
         | There's another "a-" that might not qualify as an affix.
         | 
         | Words like askew, astride, aboard, atop, ... the list is
         | actually quite long.
         | 
         | It could be added so that users of the site do not incorrectly
         | analyze certain constructions.
        
           | adrian_b wrote:
           | This meaning is enumerated at
           | 
           | https://www.etymonline.com/word/a-
           | 
           | besides the homonymous prefixes of Greek and Latin origin.
        
             | euroderf wrote:
             | Excellent! Cheers.
        
       | adzm wrote:
       | This is a truly wonderful rabbit hole and I've found myself
       | browsing through these. The way they are described is very
       | readily digestible.
       | 
       | The index of themes is a great starting point
       | https://www.affixes.org/themes/index.html
       | 
       | For example https://www.affixes.org/alpha/c/calci-.html reading
       | calci- about lime/calcium and ended up learning the origin of
       | calculate and calculus!
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Great old school content site. I bet they didn't even need a
       | JavaScript framework.
       | 
       | I didn't see the rare English infix listed here:
       | https://www.affixes.org/alpha/f/index.html
        
         | dickiedyce wrote:
         | you mean the anglo-saxon one that connotes large, frightening,
         | extraordinary, shocking, pleasurable or depressing?
        
       | keybored wrote:
       | Now we can learn the difference between "flammable" and
       | "inflammable".
        
       | pickpuck wrote:
       | If you're searching for a physical reference guide, I'd imagine
       | "Word Clues" from middle school still holds up.
       | 
       | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1616203.Word_Clues_Vocab...
        
       | layer8 wrote:
       | Wiktionary has quite comprehensive lists of those as well:
       | 
       | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_prefixes
       | 
       | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_suffixes
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-03-01 23:01 UTC)