extraordinary and genitals
- Thread starter Orleander
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spidergoat
Valued Senior Member
Ordinary does usually mean the opposite of magnificent.
I assume you have two ovaries, a uterus, and various other organs, hence the term genitals.
I assume you have two ovaries, a uterus, and various other organs, hence the term genitals.
spidergoat
Valued Senior Member
Hell yeah dawg.
globenstein
Registered Senior Member
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Remember, the basic meaning of Latin extra is not "more," but "outside." E.g. extraterrestrial, extrasensory, extralegal. Extraordinary means outside the ordinary, not more ordinary. And it does not imply magnificence. People can be extraordinarily stupid and buildings can be extraordinarily ugly.
"Genitals" is used in place of the more proper "genitalia," a Latin word in which the plural sense is not so prominent. The primary meaning is "external sex organs," but it's also used to mean all of them, so it's not incorrect to use in the plural for female anatomy.
Besides, all of the sources in dictionary.com insist that it's only a plural noun, so it would be grammatically incorrect to refer to one genital, regardless of how biologically precise it might be. You'd have to revert to Latin and talk about your single genitalis.
spidergoat
Valued Senior Member
Just for the record, Orleander's gentials are extraordinary and mine are magnificent.
Orleander, you should have taken Latin at school:
The pronunciation of words is constantly changing - words with a lot of syllables tend to get "simplified", which is why we say words like "always" and "extror-din-ry", instead of enunciating every syllable.
Some people call it lazy speech, but it's a kind of modulation we introduce because we're all lazy speakers, really.
"magnificent" is a conjoined word, like a lot of Latin words we still use. From magnus, meaning great or large, and ficus, a fig-tree.
The Latin word magnificus means "great fig-tree". But it came to mean "important" or "grand", or "impressive", sort of thing.
P.S. the -us became -ent, because the Gauls tended to adapt the gerundive magnificens ("impressing one"). The French today say magnifique, which is closer to the original adjectival noun form.
P.P.S. there is such a word as magnificus in the Latin lexicon, despite what some might have to say about the verbal forms and facere.
The pronunciation of words is constantly changing - words with a lot of syllables tend to get "simplified", which is why we say words like "always" and "extror-din-ry", instead of enunciating every syllable.
Some people call it lazy speech, but it's a kind of modulation we introduce because we're all lazy speakers, really.
"magnificent" is a conjoined word, like a lot of Latin words we still use. From magnus, meaning great or large, and ficus, a fig-tree.
The Latin word magnificus means "great fig-tree". But it came to mean "important" or "grand", or "impressive", sort of thing.
P.S. the -us became -ent, because the Gauls tended to adapt the gerundive magnificens ("impressing one"). The French today say magnifique, which is closer to the original adjectival noun form.
P.P.S. there is such a word as magnificus in the Latin lexicon, despite what some might have to say about the verbal forms and facere.
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Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
You're mixing up your parts of speech. "Genital" is an adjective in the phrase "genital warts." Admittedly that may not be obvious since English is an analytic language and we shove nouns together all the time... bird seed, dog house, business expense, railroad track, etc. But in this case "genital" is taken from the Latin adjective.
Uh, where do you live? It's the Brits who pronounce it as two syllables: strawd-nry. We speak the language more slowly in America and everybody I've ever known says "extra-ordinary," five syllables just like it's written.
That would be "magnificend," like "addend" and "subtrahend."
Real cute! I'll have to start a thread for imaginative etymologies.
Words that end in suffixes like -ific, -ify and -ificent are from facere, "to make." Magni-facere means "to make grand." We used to have a shorter word, "magnific." Americans must have got hold of it, unlike the British we like to make words longer.Dare I say that etymology has a few gotchas.
One of which is Classical Latin, but there's no doubt a bit of Greek too, with unusual ancestry.
The reason for "magnificent" deriving from the Classical "great fig-tree", is that if it came from facere, the word would be magnifactus, not magnificus.
Which means that dictionaries giving the verb facere (which is pronounced "fac", not "fic"), are giving the wrong etymology for magnificent.
P.S. That would mean the Latin translation would be more like "the seven great fig-trees", instead of "the magnificent seven".
Or "it's a large fig-tree day". But that's what the Romans used to say, and it's what we and the other Roman-influenced tongues say.
Isn't that great fig-tree?
One of which is Classical Latin, but there's no doubt a bit of Greek too, with unusual ancestry.
The reason for "magnificent" deriving from the Classical "great fig-tree", is that if it came from facere, the word would be magnifactus, not magnificus.
Which means that dictionaries giving the verb facere (which is pronounced "fac", not "fic"), are giving the wrong etymology for magnificent.
P.S. That would mean the Latin translation would be more like "the seven great fig-trees", instead of "the magnificent seven".
Or "it's a large fig-tree day". But that's what the Romans used to say, and it's what we and the other Roman-influenced tongues say.
Isn't that great fig-tree?
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Yeah!
Don't worry Spidergoat.
I'm hearin' ya, when you say magnificent, I'm doing the full visualisation,.. Your member, a massive fig tree, resplendent with burgeoning ripe figs( Aussie vernacular for knackers), complete with buttress roots (fuck, I really hate having to subtitle my subversive meanderings but I'm so sick of losing 95% of the audience, I've decided to dumb down...Roots = fucks, you know?, past conquests), ..although we're probably getting a little too personal now.
*sigh* back to the linguistics.
/why do I bother?
p.s Orleander's genitalia...'squisito!!
Don't worry Spidergoat.
I'm hearin' ya, when you say magnificent, I'm doing the full visualisation,.. Your member, a massive fig tree, resplendent with burgeoning ripe figs( Aussie vernacular for knackers), complete with buttress roots (fuck, I really hate having to subtitle my subversive meanderings but I'm so sick of losing 95% of the audience, I've decided to dumb down...Roots = fucks, you know?, past conquests), ..although we're probably getting a little too personal now.
*sigh* back to the linguistics.
/why do I bother?
p.s Orleander's genitalia...'squisito!!
Nitpicking, but isn't that six syllables..ex tra or din ar y?
Don't feel bad, I'm sometimes inclined to say 'kshrawd'n'ree.
Yeah, yeah, Dennis Moore, galloping through the sword et cet era!
Forgive me it's a private joke. Only Kremmen and Redarmy would have a chance, and they're not here...FARK!
Forgive me it's a private joke. Only Kremmen and Redarmy would have a chance, and they're not here...FARK!
Di ctio nar y,..got it fucking wrong, whoever heard of traor?