Alexander Hamilton, "The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union," The Federalist Papers, 1 Dec. The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of legislation for states or governments, in their corporate or collective capacities, and as contradistinguished from the individuals of which they consist. unattributed translation of Voltaire's The Philosophical Dictionary for the Pocket, 1765 There must ever have been both in their temper and government, some radical vice, by which they have been kept in a perpetual servitude. … I, for my part, scarce know a more contemptible people. John Godolphin, The Holy Arbor, Containing a Body of Divinity: Or, the Sum and Substance of Christian Religion, 1651
These two great radical Vertues, Faith and Love, are the two Pillars, as it were, upon which the Frabrick of our Salvation is built: for nothing makes us the Sons of God, but such Faith as is accompanied with Love and good Works … In its first foray into figurative use, radical did what you'd expect: it functioned with a meaning of "of or relating to the origin fundamental." This "fundamental" figurative meaning of radical was the dominant one for centuries: Destiny or not, it did, and pretty much immediately: the Oxford English Dictionary reports its earliest example of the figurative use from the very same source as the literal one: John Trevisa's 1398 English translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum, an encyclopedia known in English as On the Properties of Things. Root itself is a familiar element in metaphoric language-we talk about "the root of the problem," "putting roots down," "a family's roots"-and so perhaps radical was destined to develop figurative use too. And mathematicians and students of mathematics know that the radical sign-√ or √⁻-is used when you're finding the square root of a number or formula. In medicine, radical surgery is surgery that's designed to remove the root of a disease. And linguists know that a verb's radical form is its root form. None of this will surprise the botanists: they know that radical leaves grow from the base of a stem or from a rootlike stem, and radical tubers grow from a plant's root. Radical was first an adjective, borrowed in the 14th century from the Late Latin radicalis, itself from Latin radic-, radix, meaning "root." And the earliest uses of radical are indeed all about literal roots, hinging on the meaning "of, relating to, or proceeding from a root."Ī tree's roots should probably not "hang loose," however. The origin of radical isn't at all radical, in the "very different from the usual or traditional" sense of the word. Just how did radical come to have so many, uh, radically different uses? And just what is its original use? You will not be surprised to know that we have some answers for you. If surfing slang is your thing, it's probably some beach bum saying something like "Radical, dude."Īh, English: yet again, using the same word to do so many jobs. If math is your thing, you might think of square roots. When you think of the word radical, what comes to mind? If politics is your thing, it might be an image of a person far to your ideological right or left. Now radical is associated with extreme change and deviation from the norm.
Later, radical was used more figuratively to mean "fundamental" and examples like "radical reform" referred to changing the very root of the system.
The meaning of radical for many centuries was related to its origins radicalis meaning "root." Thus, until recently, radical referred to the roots of words, the roots of illness, or even square roots.
0 kommentar(er)
