|
- Why, in older books (Victorian era), are dates often given with the . . .
Why is it, in older books, that years are sometimes redacted and replaced with a dash when writing the date in letters and so forth? Here is an example, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Letter 1 St Petersburgh, Dec 11th, 17-- TO Mrs Saville, England You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied
- Why does No mean Number? - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
Why does English use "No " as an abbreviation for "Number"? It's a preserved scribal abbreviation like the ampersand (formed by eliding the letters of et to mean and) The OED has it in use from the 8th century, based on the ablative numerō used for an implied preposition in: X in or according to number It also gets used by the French based on numéro, which produced Wiktionary's erroneous
- Why Does $ Come Before the Number But % Comes After it?
I'm nit-picking a bit, but '%' is not a unit of measure- it denotes a ratio multiplied by 100 for convenience, and represents the 100 required to yield the actual ratio Variants have appeared before the number in Italian, for example
- Why is pineapple in English but ananas in all other languages?
The question is: why did the English adapt the name pineapple from Spanish (which originally meant pinecone in English) while most European countries eventually adapted the name ananas, which came from the Tupi word nanas (also meaning pineapple)
- etymology - Why shrink (of a psychiatrist)? - English Language . . .
I know it originates from "head shrinking", but it doesn't help me a lot to understand the etymology Why are psychiatrists called that? Is it like "my head is swollen [from anguish, misery, stress
- Why is it called hypochondria instead of hyperchondria?
Why is it called hypochondria instead of hyperchondria? [closed] Ask Question Asked 5 years, 4 months ago Modified 5 years, 4 months ago
- Why are the United States often referred to as America?
Why would it be strange to shorten this? It is common to shorten the official name of a country — most people don't even know the official names for the various countries For example, the official name of Mexico is "los Estados Unidos Mexicanos", which means "the Mexican United States"; nobody is surprised that it is referred to as "Mexico"
- etymology - Why is pound (of weight) abbreviated lb? - English . . .
As to why ounce uncia is "1 12th", that is related to the Roman system of measurement Duodecimal systems were not infrequently used around the Mediterranean, but the exact development and origin of why the Romans divided an as into 12 uncia is not entirely certain See this question for more information: Why is 1 12 called an “uncia” in Latin?
|
|
|