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Random thoughts
jwhouk:
And then there are some who believe that "evangelical Christian" is redundant.
BeoPuppy:
And then there are people who think christians are redundant ...
Papersatan:
--- Quote from: LTK on 18 Nov 2012, 06:30 ---Whose bright idea was it to use the same word for 'visible electromagnetic radiation' and 'low in weight'?
--- End quote ---
The OED tells me they both descended from the Old Enligsh word léoht, which has the meanings:
1. adj light, not heavy; slight, easy, trifling, inconsiderable; quick, agile; gentle; 2. n (-es/-) light, daylight; power of vision; luminary; world; 3. adj luminous, bright, light, clear, resplendent, renowned, beautiful.
Perhaps because light can be seen, but not touched, felt (as heat) but not weighed. It surrounds us, and yet seems to be nothing. My guess would be that the use as an adjective is a (very) dead metaphor. All the adj meanings seem traits which could apply to light, and therefor ones which one might invoke by metaphorically calling something "light". Over time frequent used of a metaphorical term like that "kills" the metaphor so that while we understand its meaning, we no longer feel the tension as it pulls against its original meaning.
LTK:
The adjectives could apply to visible light, but they are much more appropriate for one than the other. Enlightened, light as point of view, and light as truth are more appropriate to visible light, and insignificant, unforceful, and not serious are more appropriate to lightweight. It's not unlikely that light as in weight was appropriated from visible light, but the adjectives have clearly been used in one particular sense more than the other.
Gnomes2169:
And then there are people who think people are redundant...
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