Archive for July, 2011

What is the collective term for nieces and nephews?

“Nieces and nephews” is a cumbersome thing to say. When we want to say “brothers and sisters”, we can say “siblings” instead. When we want to say “mother and father” we can say “parents”. On top of being shorter, the other benefit to these things is that they are gender-neutral. Does “nieces and nephews” have an equivalent?

Well, I couldn’t find one. So I made one up.

“Adelpho-” is a Greek stem that tends to mean sibling. For instance, adelphogamy is a specifically brother-sister form of incest, and adelphophagy is one embryo prenatally consuming another. I just rammed this into the suffix “-geny”, which tends to mean origin or production (such as in “progeny”), and is also Greek, so bonus points for congruency.

Thus, we now have the term adelphogeny to refer collectively, and gender-neutrally, to nieces and nephews.

2011
07/23
CATEGORY
Language
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What temperature is a comfortably hot shower?

As I was showering last night (trying to stop the water from burning me before the cold infusion kicked in), I wondered what temperature a shower is usually at. I would quite broadly guess somewhere between 30 and 70°C to avoid water that is boiling or colder than your body – clearly I didn’t have a very specific idea of what is normal (or safe). Wikipedia tells me that hot water is preferred to be between 40 and 49°C for “dish-washing, laundry and showering”. So there we go.

2011
07/12
CATEGORY
Miscellaneous
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Are the words “anthrax” and “anthracite” related?

Anthrax is a disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, demonstrated by such things as flu-like respiratory symptoms, severe vomiting, and skin lesions, depending on the form of exposure (respiratory, gastrointestinal or cutaneous, respectively, for those three). Often the term “anthrax” is used to refer to the bacterium rather than just the disease. Anthracite, meanwhile, is a high-carbon form of coal known for being shiny. Knowing that the “-ite” suffix can mean a mineral, I wondered whether the “anthrac-” part of anthracite was related to “anthrax”.

Turns out it is – sort of. The Greek anthrax means both coal (hence anthracite) and carbuncle (hence anthrax). If this is similar to English “wind” meaning both air movement and as in “to wind up”, then I guess anthrax and anthracite aren’t related at all except that they sound the same (depending on where the Greek words anthrax and anthrax came from), but if it’s more like the word “cow” meaning both a female bovine and a female whale (which is more like the same word meaning two things than two words that are phonetically identical), then I guess they are related.

2011
07/05
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Language
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Which Scottish/British monarch name has the longest gap between reuses?

You may remember when I investigated the gaps between reuse of names for English/British monarchs. At the time I left out Scottish monarchs because it complicated things, but I felt bad so I have done them now as well.

As with last time, to represent the end of one reign I’ve used the letter d (for “death”, though it wasn’t always), and s for the start of the next reign with that name. After the crowns of England and Scotland merged, the numbers skip ahead a bit because England had Edwards that Scotland didn’t, as well as an extra William.

Alexander
I d. 1124, II s. 1214 = 90 years.
II d. 1249, III s. 1249 = 0 years.

Charles
I d. 1649, II s. 1649 = 0 years.

Constantine
I d. 877, II s. 900 = 23 years.
II d. 943, III s. 995 = 52 years.

David
I d. 1153, II s. 1329 = 176 years.

Donald
I d. 862, II s. 889 = 27 years.
II d. 900, III s. 1093 = 193 years.

Duncan
I d. 1040, II s. 1094 = 54 years.

Edward
VII d. 1910, VIII s. 1936 = 26 years.

George
I d. 1727, II s. 1727 = 0 years.
II d. 1760, III s. 1760 = 0 years.
III d. 1820, IV s. 1820 = 0 years.
IV d. 1830, V s. 1910 = 80 years.
V d. 1936, VI s. 1936 (though not immediately succeeding) = 326 days = 0 years.

James
I d. 1437, II s. 1437 = 0 years.
II d. 1460, III s. 1460 = 0 years.
III d. 1488, IV s. 1488 = 0 years.
IV d. 1513, V s. 1513 = 0 years.
V d. 1542, VI s. 1567 = 25 years.
VI d. 1625, VII s. 1685 = 60 years.

Kenneth
I d. 858, II s. 971 = 113 years.
II d. 995, III s. 997 = 2 years.

Malcolm
I d. 954, II s. 1005 = 51 years.
II d. 1034, III s. 1058 = 24 years.
III d. 1093, IV s. 1153 = 60 years.

Mary
I d. 1467, II s. 1689 = 222 years.

Robert
I d. 1329, II s. 1371 = 42 years.
II d. 1390, III s. 1390 = 0 years.

William
I d. 1214, II s. 1689 = 475 years.
II d. 1702, IV s. 1830 = 128 years.

Interestingly, the answer is again William (the later William being in fact the same William who won for the English/British monarchs, though with 114 years removed because Scotland’s William I came after England’s William II). William is also the name that had the largest time pass between it’s first use and second use, with 672 years passing between the start of William I’s reign and the end of William IV’s.

Here is a graph of the averages for each name.

2011
07/03
CATEGORY
History
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