2005-06-24

From this hour to that hour

Someone asked for the etymology is of the French word encore (Italian ancora, Rumantsch aunc).

The bizarre but apparently uncontested etymology is Latin hinc ad horam '[from] this [hour] to [that] hour'. Hey, it's no worse than ampersand, which is from and per se and, as in the old style of reciting the alphabet, ending with "x y z and per se [by itself] &".

Update: The Romanian word încă mentioned in an earlier version of this posting is probably from Latin unquam.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Minor spelling correction: the Romanian word is încă. You can check it at dexonline.ro (the explanatory dictionary for the Romanian language). The etymology given there is different, though.