As opposed to naturally occurring or unintentionally produced by human activity. It would include commodities, products, merchandise, parts, materials, etc.
Specifically a thing that has any work put into it.
@AndrewLeach Huh, I'd never made that connection! But no, the word comes from Italian melenzana according to Greek Wiktionary. Not sure how much trust I'd put in that though.
Another possibility I just made up is that it might come from the Ancient Greek root for black: μέλανας (melanas, or something along those lines, anyway, @Cerberus would probably know). Point being I doubt it has any connection to meli (honey).
Hmm no. I found a more reputable source which confirms its origin from the Italian but adds that it originally came from an Indian word (vatin ganah, apparently meaning "plant that cures gases"(!)) through Persian bādingān (بادنجان), to Arabic (al-)bāḏinjān (باذنجان.)
Then on to Latin, Italian and then into Greek as μελιτζάνα.
I was thinking about if there is a word like "waker" and what meanings it has, or how would people feel about it if they heard it.
Can we call the person who wakes others up a waker?
And if I call a person an early waker or an every day waker, can it also mean that he is a person who wakes up (...
I waited for a word from you since the time I got the news that you had fled.
or
I waited for a word from you from the time I got the news that you had fled.
Please help. Since or From?
I'm revising a concise synopsis of a child with certain special needs. In the Strengths section, there's a phrase that's taking up too much space: good at making connections with what he’s already learned. I need something more concise that gets this idea across to teachers.
While writing a report and needing to be brief I wondered if I could use a single word to call a subset of researchers dealing with biomimetics (the science of replicating biological solutions in technology). "People studying biomimetics" sounds rather cumbersome, so a single-word solution would ...
I'd like to briefly describe a number of large objects that are half-submerged into a swamp, and nothing quite fits so far. Just "sunken" or the like might work in a pinch, but I thought I'd ask in case someone knows a word that quickly communicates that the objects are also clearly visible above...
Guys, I have a somewhat ESL question but linguistically relevant one. I was able to guess correct answers for all the questions from this link http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/time-prepositions-exercise-1.html
Anyway, for prepositions, each one can have many distinct meanings, and each of those meanings can have a broad range (in the mathematical sense). And the meanings of different prepositions can overlap a little.
I see what you mean. From a perspective of software developer / bilingual, I feel like you can just use one of those prepositions to transfer any message without issues.
So unlike 'a' vs 'an', there is no simple deterministic rule. There are general guidelines, up is higher than down, even with metaphors. But sometimes it's just weird and you have to remember.
but human language is just not like software languages. we just innately follow patterns we've heard others say and those patterns are sometimes regular, sometimes not.
`The class is at 9am on Monday mornings.` `The class is at 9am at Monday mornings ` I see no differences. If I was an alien who speak superior language of universe, I'd quickly discard those "at" or "on" usage and just use one of them or simply omit them completely.
It's just waste of space when it comes serialising them into bytes to transfer over wires.
if one were designing a language from the beginning, it'd be so much better to make entirely regular rules with no exceptions. But that's just not how humans work