Meandering thoughts and webs with flailing threads

[marmot_pie]

Something that interests me right now is the term to 'miss' someone. The other common use of this word means to aim at something and not hit it, catch it or in some other way no achieve reaching a target

Comments

Maybe I misunderstood;

[arinellen]

The idea of applying this to people and their relationships is interesting...
I'm sure you know this, but for others, its a fallacy to assume the words are related in any meaning. They could have unrelated stems or the change could be so variated from what it was that it is not related to the original divergent meaning. But perhaps you know their stems?

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[louisthefly]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/miss

I kind of see it- miss means to 'feel a loss or absense'

I find the dictionary that comes with osX 10.5 is super for these sort of things- although the explanation of word origins could be better. And there's a really good Japanese dictionary that comes standard for some reason.

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[arinellen]

Oh no, I was sure that they were related, but marmot_pie didn't seem to know if it was true and just assumed. Which can get annoying, like people thinking languages are related because words for dad and mum are the same. :D

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[marmot_pie]

I tried to use dictionary.com to figure out the 'sitter' part of house-sitter and baby-sitter, but it wasn't very extensive.
OsX 10.5?

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[louisthefly]

mac osx

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[marmot_pie]

Ah. Know of any good online ones?

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[louisthefly]

japanese dictionaries? wwwjdic rocks

and I use dictionary.com for rregular dictionary uses

Re: Maybe I misunderstood;

[marmot_pie]

I don't know their stems, though I'd like to, to appease my historical geekiness. Perhaps they were different sounding words in the past, and overtime were mistaken for the other and ended up with the same spelling. So the same spelling is coincidental, then?
How much of a word's meaning is made up of it's current use and how much is made up of how it was used in the past? A word's baggage, you might call it.