prefix for one-half
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Semi does not actually mean half, it means partial. But semi and semi are both Greek.
Demi is French.
Demi is French.
Semicircle is 1/2 circle, hemisphere is 1/2 sphere. Why different prefixes?
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
Just to muddy things up a bit:
Sixty-fourth note
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In music notation, a sixty-fourth note (American), or hemidemisemiquaver or semidemisemiquaver (British), sometimes called a half-thirty-second note (Burrowes 1874, 42), is a note played for half the duration of a thirty-second note (or demisemiquaver), hence the name. It first occurs in the late 17th century and, apart from rare occurrences of hundred twenty-eighth notes (semihemidemisemiquavers) and two hundred fifty-sixth notes (demisemihemidemisemiquavers), it is the shortest value found in musical notation (Morehen 2001).
Sixty-fourth note
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In music notation, a sixty-fourth note (American), or hemidemisemiquaver or semidemisemiquaver (British), sometimes called a half-thirty-second note (Burrowes 1874, 42), is a note played for half the duration of a thirty-second note (or demisemiquaver), hence the name. It first occurs in the late 17th century and, apart from rare occurrences of hundred twenty-eighth notes (semihemidemisemiquavers) and two hundred fifty-sixth notes (demisemihemidemisemiquavers), it is the shortest value found in musical notation (Morehen 2001).
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
Numeral prefix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"semi-" redirects here. For other uses, see semi (disambiguation).
Numeral or number prefixes are prefixes derived from numerals or occasionally other numbers. In English and other European languages, they are used to coin numerous series of words, such as unicycle – bicycle – tricycle, dyad – triad – decade, biped – quadruped, September – October – November – December, decimal – hexadecimal, sexagenarian – octogenarian, centipede – millipede, etc. There are two principal systems, taken from Latin and Greek, each with several subsystems; in addition, Sanskrit occupies a marginal position.[1] There is also an international set of metric prefixes, which are used in the metric system, and which for the most part are either distorted from the forms below or not based on actual number words.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Semi-)
Jump to navigationJump to search
"semi-" redirects here. For other uses, see semi (disambiguation).
Numeral or number prefixes are prefixes derived from numerals or occasionally other numbers. In English and other European languages, they are used to coin numerous series of words, such as unicycle – bicycle – tricycle, dyad – triad – decade, biped – quadruped, September – October – November – December, decimal – hexadecimal, sexagenarian – octogenarian, centipede – millipede, etc. There are two principal systems, taken from Latin and Greek, each with several subsystems; in addition, Sanskrit occupies a marginal position.[1] There is also an international set of metric prefixes, which are used in the metric system, and which for the most part are either distorted from the forms below or not based on actual number words.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Heh.
"In music, a two hundred fifty-sixth note (or occasionally demisemihemidemisemiquaver) is a note played for 1/256 of the duration of a whole note."
Googled "shortest note in music".
And yet, even that is not the limit.
When I used to digitize music for my Commodore 64, I transcribed some classical sheet music that had a type of note that was defined as "theoretically zero duration". They're always followed by another note, so the effect is kind of like a "pling" rather than a "ding".
Can't recall what they were called.
[EDIT] acciaccatura, which is a grace note with a slash through it - means "as fast as possible"
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The general rule is that you pair latin prefixes to latin words, and so on for greek and the normanic. So semi comes to bear on a lot of mathematical words (latin contribution), hemi on biology/environment and demi on cultural ... although thats just a general rule ... for instance tele (G) + vision (L)
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Not quite. Semi- is Latin, hemi- is Greek and demi- is French. Obviously all from the same orignal root.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Yes, I looked into that. But 'sphere' and 'circle' are ambiguously Latin and/or Greek, so no reason to choose different prefixes.
As above, I was hoping the root word examples circle and sphere would be different, but they're not. So why different prefixes?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Sphere is obviously Greek from the use of ph for the f sound.
Circle is taken from the Latin circulus, the diminutive of circus, acc. my OED. Though indeed this was taken by Latin from similar Greek words.
It looks like semicircle is a derived idiosyncrasy of English - that it started out in its standard meaning as "partial or approximate circle", and was used so often for an exact half circle that it stuck. (Semi doesn't mean exactly and only half in any other context I can think of off hand).
So kind of an accident, nothing more significant underneath, by appearances.
Current from Merriman-Webster examples:
a : precisely half of:
(1) : forming a bisection of
(2) : being a usually vertically bisected form of (a specified architectural feature)
2: to some extent : partly : incompletely
3:
a : partial : incomplete
a : precisely half of:
(1) : forming a bisection of
- semidiameter
(2) : being a usually vertically bisected form of (a specified architectural feature)
- semidome
- semiannual
- semimonthly
2: to some extent : partly : incompletely
- semicivilized
- semi-independent
- semidry
3:
a : partial : incomplete
- semiconsciousness
- semidarkness
- semiporcelain
- semigovernmental
- semimonastic
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Yep. I noted this in post 2.