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Comment by buttocks | Hacker News Reader

Deep thoughts: why aren’t “increment” and “excrement” opposites?

Because "increase" and "excrete" have completely different roots that only coincidentally coincide when the verbal nouns corresponding to those words are formed.

now do "progress" and "congress"!

You mean, the difference between "going forward" and "coming together"? It's in the prefix, "pro-" (for, forward) versus "con-" (with, together) which give you different shades of the meaning. Can't really say what's the verb of movement was though.

I think he meant it as an absurdist joke, but this is a great response!

I looked it up, "gress" comes from "gradi" in Latin which directly translates to "walk". More specifically: con(pro) + gradi -> congredi (verb) -> congressus (noun)

Edit: Knowing this, "gradient" has an interesting flavour :)

Edit: It looks like the path is more indirect for "gradient"

"gradi" (walk) -> "gradus" (step) -> "grade" (french influence) + "salient" -> "gradient". I like that in Latin "walk" is "to step", or perhaps "step" is "the unit of walking"? "A walking"? Etymology is fun!

now do "flammable" and "inflammable"!

What a country!

> I like that in Latin "walk" is "to step", or perhaps "step" is "the unit of walking"? "A walking"?

Consider the verb "to pace", and the corresponding noun "pace": the analogy is almost perfect. Of course, Latin also had other words for going places.

Your name checks out. You should be an expert in that (excremental) matters.

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