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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

orthoptera. sounds like...? {NSM}

helicóptero. that's helicopter in spanish. okay, so it doesn't really sound anything like it if you pronounce both words correctly in their respective languages... but still, one reminds me of the other. ;) which got me thinking, i bet there's some correlation with word roots, prefixes, suffixes and stuff... which got me looking around a bit, and i happened upon a very cool site with the following information, which may or may not be of interest to you:

orth(o)– {straight, correct}:anorthite, orthochromatic, orthoclase, orthodontia, orthodox, orthognathic, orthogonal, orthographic, orthopedic, Orthoptera, orthotics, orthotropic || Gr orthos: straight, correct

pter– {feather, wing}: apterous, apteryx, brachypterous, Chiroptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, helicopter, Hemiptera, Heteroptera, Isoptera, Lepidoptera, Mecoptera, ornithopter, pterodactyl, pterosaur, Siphonoptera, Trichoptera, accipiter ||  Gr  pteron: wing, feather


of course, i could have just looked up the word in a dictionary... which says:
ORIGIN modern Latin (plural), from ortho-‘straight’ + Greek pteros ‘wing.’

right. that would've been quicker.
but, i'd never have found the cool site with the cool name. cognatarium. that's cool.
(see helpful links, below)

i knew it had to do with language. i love learning languages. root words are super helpful with that!


we caught most of these a couple of days ago... but saved the study part over 'til today.

so this week we covered: 
waterfall. newt. ground cricket. round headed katydid.
i added all the orthopteras to that page in my nature journal. 
do you think those leaves might have been similar to those that eve used?





helpful links:
*"The Cognātarium is a lexicon of English-language cognates; that is, words related by common origin. In English many words are formed from compounds of two or more word stems from the original language. In the great majority of words listed here in this lexicon, those original words stem from ancient Latin and Greek. For example, helicopter and pterodactyl both contain the root stem pter–, which means wing in the original Greek."
*Learn that Word's Root Words & Prefixes - QUICK REFERENCE! & Suffix page
*{nature study monday!} see linky below...

It's fun to share!
Bookmark this post (or use the link in the menu bar), come back and share YOUR nature study posts for the whole month of April in the brand spankin' new LINKY right below...







have i ever told you how cool that linky tools thing is? it's this thing where you can enter the link to your blog post into one of my blog posts (don't forget to add a picture!), so that anyone who comes to my blog will see your link and head on over from my place to your place... it can turn into a cool little gathering! well, the guy who owns linky tools, brent riggs, is really cool, too. he's super helpful. and i highly recommend that you check him out! and i'm not getting paid to say that! ;)

4 comments:

Harmony Moore said...

I am so glad I was pointed toward your link-up. What a good idea! :)

amyinperu said...

me too, harmony! i'll be checking out your link, shortly! ;)

Celeste Cruz said...

Love the pen drawings. And that leaf is too funny--I always wondered how they covered themselves with just leaves... :)

amyinperu said...

and it'd only take 1 or 2 of those HUGE ones!! ;)

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