I’m a lover of words. If you give me a word, I’ll immediately try to figure out the root of it, which is why I took Latin in high school and still remember a lot of it.
Well, now that you know I’m a sucker for words, here’s something unexpected. You can find the full article here. However, I’ll touch on some interesting parts.
The article is in reference to words with “gym-” or “gymno-” as their prefix.
Try to make a list of words that begin with “gym-.” The first one I thought of was gymnasium.
Now, try to work this one out. The prefix funnily enough means “naked.”
Imagine going to work out (at the gym) each day…naked. Sound fun? No? Well, the Greeks sure did it. In fact, they held races where the participants were naked, most notably the Olympics. The reason? No one knows for sure, but this is an excellent website that answers a lot of questions on the topic.
Knowing the roots of certain words really help you decide which words are appropriate for you to use in the context you’re writing. Keep that in mind when you’re editing. If you find out a word is contradictory, look first in the prefix, suffix, and root.
