h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

in that case I can assur eyou it has neither 'a' nor 'an' before it but rather 'ad'.

Yes, good point, but 'ad' before hear or ear?

Erm, sorta halfway between really.

adeer is an woodlands animal
ad-here is an in struction

adhere kinda rolls the dh into one almost one sound. To me anyway
Although I might sometimes use ad-here thinking about it, but it is softer than that.

But it's not the d/dh opposition that's distinctive, it's more the way you pronounce the 'a' before it. So you can very well pronounce 'ad-here' with the 'h' and be nunderstood.

nunderstood? standing under a nun?

Strange word, 'ample'.

These days it is usually only seen when followed by the words 'free parking'. In the old days it was also applied to bossoms.

I have no idea what an 'ample' is. Any ideas?
Two other derivatives, 'ex-ample' and 's-ample' seem to indicate it meant a representative unit or measure of something ..somehow. Not to be confused with 'ampules' which are also sometimes 'samples'.

I wondered if 'trample' was related; but decided it's probably just a spelling variant of the 'amble' school of words like ramble, preambulate and ambulatory which all involve bi-pedal manouevres of a more or less 'ambling' nature such as pushing a pram.


jwf

As an amply bosomed one (does my bust look big in this)I congratulate you on today's preamble to the next topic

Isn't an ample a small sub unit of electrical current?

Mispronunciation of "armful"?

Ample comes from the Latin word 'amplus', but I don't know what that means. My dictionary says that an ample figure can apply to a man that is 'portly' as well as a woman that is 'buxom'. Buxom is thought to come from the same word as bosom, the Old English buhsum.

It is related to the Old English 'bugan', to bend. I presume this is nothing to do with people from Bulgaria.

Amplus meant large both in an abstract and a concrete way. Example is completely unrelated, as it comes from exemptus (with an *e*).

you're thinking of an ampère, or amp, which is named after André-Marie Ampère, who invented them

Hello, Clare, and welcome.
You are in the suburbs of pun city, here. Not everything is as it seems to be, a bit like Orthank, really. Some of the people are a little strange, not at all like me. I'm just old.
Would you agree that good old André-Marie discovered, described, or calibrated "ampères" rather than inventing them?
Share and enjoy!

So you're saying Spinal Taps amplifiers didn't really go up to 11?

That 'exemptus' thingy really opens a few cans-o-worms wot. I can see now where example isn't ample when I think of 'exemplify'.

'Ex-emptus' to my high-school-latin-impressed mind means 'out of empty' or 'from the emptiness'. So now I wonder if 'gamble' might really be a 'gemble' meaning 'to empty (pockets, purses)'

Still wondering about trample and tramps and trampolines.


jwf

I think Ampere discovered current, but invented the measure of amps. Or, perhaps, he discovered current, then someone else invented a measure for it and named it after him. Incidentally, seeing as how scientists discover stuff and inventors invent (now there's a surprise) do mathematicians discover or invent things? Were there squares on the hypotenuse before Pythagoras met them? (And where does 'invent' come from? Is it to do with wind?) What would you say?

I suppose it depends. Euclidian geometry for example I would say was invented since it is just one way of doing things and non euclidean geometry exists and works as well. But things like PI and e and squares exist whether we know of them or not so are I'd say were discovered.
But then I'm apparently weird and just here to make bad puns

"invent" comes from Latin "invenio, (invenire inveni inventum, to give it its principal parts) meaning to come upon, to find, to meet with. It is simply the verb "venio", "to come" with the preposition "in" tacked on the front. And so, the English words "discover" and "invent" really have the same root meanings. There does seem to be a more active connotation to "invent", however.
I'd agree that electric current existed before the unit of measure was invented (by committee: http://www.sizes.com/units/ampHist.htm) just as temperature existed before Celsius and Fahrenheit put their notches on their thermometers. And, I suspect, the relationship between the hypotenuse and the other two sides is the same whether some square notices it or not. Now, about that falling tree in the forest . . .

Strange, in that the prefix dis has a negative connotation, makes discover sound a throwing away rather than a finding action. Or does the dis part refer to removing the cover?

Another random thought that occured to me the other day - were the apostles ahead of their time in writing e-pistles?

"discover - early 14c., from O.Fr. descovrir, from L.L. discooperire, from L.
dis- "opposite of" + cooperire "to cover up." Discoverer (14c.) originally
meant "informant." "

from the Online Etymological Dictionary (very handy) http://www.etymonline.com/d4etym.htm


I'm assuming you forgot the smiley after the e-pistles observation. What's the opposite of e-pistle? Snail-pistle?

There you are, Clare.
Q.E.D.