adept

In English, if you are adept, you are good at doing something that needs care and skill. The noun adept means someone who is skilled at something, a master or expert. The word comes from Latin ADEPTUS, meaning who has achieved (i.e. knowledge). In the Middle Ages, an adept was someone who alleged to have found the philosopher’s stone, that is, who was a master in alchemy.

The Swedish word adept means pupil, disciple, or novice, beginner. The word has the same Latin origin as the English adept, and yet it has the opposite meaning.

babysitter

A babysitter in English is someone who looks after a child or children while the parents are out.  In Swedish, that person is called barnvakt.

Babysitter is the Swedish word for baby bouncer, a supportive seat designed for infants that provides a gentle bouncing or rocking motion.

remiss

Remiss in English means careless, negligent. It comes from Latin REMITTERE, send back, which related to letting go and then took on the meaning of carelessness.

Of the same Latin origin, the Swedish noun remiss means a doctor’s referral of a patient to a hospital or specialist for examination or treatment. The word also refers to a matter being referred to a committee, etc., for consideration, especially in Parliament.

ask

Unlike false friends, false cognates do not share the same origin. One example is ask.

In English you can ask a question, Swedish fråga, or ask somebody to do something for you, Swedish be. You can also ask a person to dinner or to dance, Swedish bjuda. Ask comes from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to wish or request, in Old English ASCIAN.

In Swedish, ask (from another Proto-Indo-European word meaning ash) is either an ash-tree, Fraxinus excelsior, or a small box, usually with a loose lid.

English ask and Swedish ask look the same but do not have the same origin. They are false cognates.

You can find more than 400 examples of false friends (and false cognates) in my book It’s not the farts that kill – it’s the smell!, available at Amazon. You can read about the book here. And you can read about false friends here.

The post Same but different appeared first on copyeditor.se.

As a noun, minute is pronounced /ˈmɪnɪt/.

A minute is a period of time, sixty seconds or one sixtieth of an hour.
They were twenty minutes late.

Minute can also refer to a distance, how far you can walk or drive in a minute.
Our house is just ten minutes from the bus stop.

Minute also indicates a very short time.
Sit down, please; I’ll be with you in a minute.

In geometry, minute is a sixtieth of a degree of an angle.

The noun minute comes from Medieval Latin pars minuta prima, first small part, from minutus, made small. (Second comes from pars minuta secunda, second small part.)

The plural noun minutes refers to a record of the proceedings of a meeting. It comes via French minute from Latin scriptura minuta, small writing.
The secretary read the minutes from the last meeting.

The adjective minute, pronounced /mʌɪˈnjuːt/, means extremely small. Just like the noun, it comes from Latin minutus, made small.
With such a high resolution, minute details could be studied in the image.

The post Minute also means very small appeared first on copyeditor.se.