Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

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> to lose one’s temper

Huh, never thought about that one before.

Linguistic stuff like this is fun to find; these days I mostly spot it via learning German as a second language, so the artifice in artificial intelligence becomes “Künstliches Intelligenz” where “Kunst” is artist and “Kunststoff” is plastic, and in Middle Low German “kunst” is knowledge and ability.

> coined

Deliberate choice to exemplify your point, or accidental because it’s almost impossible to avoid examples like this in modern English?

Something I've heard a few times is that computer "logs" refer to ships log books, but log books themselves refer to the actual wooden logs that would be thrown out of the back of ships to help determine their speed.

>wooden logs that would be thrown out of the back of ships to help determine their speed.

see also, knots

I always thought it was related to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

I think he was pouring over tables of data when he worked out algorithms.

Modern submarines still have a "log" which is a pole and sensor that extends outside of the hull to measure the speed through the water and other important measurements.

Just an interesting connection, in English, "plastic" comes from Greek, via Latin (and Medieval Italian) "to mold". We see this meaning show up in phrases like "neural plasticity," which refers to the brain's capacity to learn, (re)grow, and make new connections (e.g. knowledge and abilities).

It's also used when talking about magma.

> where “Kunst” is artist and “Kunststoff” is plastic, and in Middle Low German “kunst” is knowledge and ability.

Kunst means art, and an artist is a "Künstler" in German. (and Intelligenz is grammatically female, so there is no trailing s in "künstlich" in "künstliche Intelligenz". Its a difficult language.

Danke.

I was very surprised when I first found out about the local phrase, "Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache".

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