(non-native speaker)

Is there a reason why the English language has “special” words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?

And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.

  • Mr_Wobble@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    “They both come from the same French word, résumer. The Latin root of that word could be translated as “to take back” (and you can see that use on occasion, as when a deposed king “resumes the throne”), but the core meaning that links resume and résumé could better be translated as “to come back to” — in one case, to come back to an activity; in the other, to go over a series of events again in brief.”

    But I’ll tell you as a native English speaker, we almost never think about words like that having different meanings and origins. We’re just really used to homographs and homophones.