On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > > >On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > >> Looking at the OED for "periodic", I see that it is from the Greek for >> (peri) around + (odos) way. "Way" has a good Germanic heritage, but >> that leaves us with the problematic "around" (OED says "rare before >> 1600"). [snip] >> So therefore, the concept of "periodic" in chemistry might be >> expressed by "wheelwayish". >How about backturning? Or again-and-again-turning? > The word "turn" appears to be from Latin, but it would appear to be a *very* early borrowing; it exists in Old English, and also shows up in Old High German and Icelandic, with an ultimately Greek root. OED says: On the twofold representation of L. /tornre/ in OE. see Pogatscher /Latein. u. Roman. Lehnworte im Altenglischen/, §§9, 159, 271; he shows that the umlauted /tyrnan/ must have already existed c 600. I am not sure what Poul's policy was regarding such, but I think it would be better than "around". "Again" is an English substitute for the Latin prefix "re-" (one of the things I found was that "Agenbite of Inwit" or "Ayenbite of Inwyt" was a translation of "Remorse of Concience"; Latin "morse" == "mord" == English "bite"). So "againturning" could work, I think. Or perhaps "againrunning" (recurring) would be another possibility. I had the thought that "about" can also conver the concept of "around"; indeed, OED says: [OE. /on-bútan/ (cf. OFries. /abûta/), f. /on/ in, on + /bútan/ without, outside of (itself an earlier comb. of /be/ by, near, + /útan/ properly locative of /út/ out, used adjectively or substantively; cf. /be northan/, etc.) The primary meaning of /on-bútan/ was thus, /on/ or /by the outside of/, hence /around/, wholly or partially. The idea of /round, about/, was originally expressed in OE. by /ymbe/, and its compound /ymb-útan/; the latter scarcely survived the 11th c., and the former became obs. in the 13th, /about/ taking the place of both. The weakening to /a-bútan/ began in the 10th c. (one of the quotes is amusing, and also includes "turn": c1000 ÆLFRIC Manual of Astron. 10 Seo firmament tyrnð symle onbutan us.. & ealleð a steorran..turniað onbutan mid hyre. ) Which gives us "aboutwayish". (Hmm. Looking at that quote above, I think Poul would have preferred "welkin" to "firmament". That Aelfric! Didn't even want to use his own language! )