Danscope, thanks for the advice. Sadly, I believe he already owns a copy though. (I've seen it on his bookshelf)

I've seen what you've said happen twice to the good.

BUT, I also know that one of the most reprehensable men I've ever met was a graduate of Dale Carnegie's school of charm. He was one of those cheerful sociopaths. He made me so mad I didn't want to hit him, I wanted to freakin' cut him. The only reason I didn't was women and children were present.

Fortunately for both of us he took a job back east. His name is Scott Baily if you ever have the misfortune to encounter this six and a half foot tall pile of dung. Darn it! I'm mad all over again!

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

That's way too close for comfort. The first eight letters of his name and mine are exactly the same (in that order, too).

I think I can safely say I've never used the word "colinear" or "collinear" in print before. Merriam-Webster's first definition for "colinear," however, is "COLLINEAR" (their caps), so I'm guessing that version is preferred. I don't know why; straight etymology suggests to me that "colinear" is the original form, on account of it would be "co-linear." In this case, I think you're going to have to seek another authority if you want something more thorough.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

As I understand it, the original (for whatever that means) usages of the prefix meaning "with" or "together", from the Latin cum, were:

com- when the word starts with b, p, or m: combine; comport; commingle
col- when the word starts with l: collateral; collinear
cor- when the word starts with r: correlate; correspond
con- when the word starts with consonants except b,p,m,l,h, and r: convene; condone; conjugate
and
co- when the word starts with a vowel, h, or gn: cognate, cohabit, coauthor

It's only recently that co- has begun to be used as a general prefix with any starting letter.

So "collinear" probably is the original form with "colinear" coming later.

Interesting. Dictionary.com gives the pronuncation for the first syllable of "collinear" as either "kuh-" or "koh-", but for "colinear" it is only given as "kuh-". Wouldn't you think "colinear" would be pronounced as "koh-"?

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I stand corrected; you're probably right.

Yeah, that's weird. I say it "koh-" when I say it at all (not often!), though I've never thought of how I spell it before. And again, it looks like "co-linear," and most people, I think, would pronounce that "koh-" just on instinct.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Thanks to both of you.

Adding to the discussion of my answer, I just stumbled across the word correlate. Considering the spelling of that word, collinear is probably the correct spelling, despite how I want to read it.

The Oxford English Dictionary does have coming from the Old French coart, despite its rather late first attestation in English. From Old French coe, "tail", origin of modern French queue, and linking backwards to Latin cauda, as you say.

The OED does have the following to say, which might be of interest to BigDon:BTW: In heraldry, the adjective "coward" is applied to an animal with its tail between its legs (as in "a lion coward"), which would fit with some of the reasoning above.

Grant Hutchison

The source I read said it was Latin, but I concede to the OED. (Maybe people could go in on getting me a copy, just for such occasions!)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It kind of makes sense, too. "Coward" is first attested in English at a time when England still had large territories in France and strong continental French connections, and when the elite European culture of the "parfait gentle knight" was still going strong.
I've just discovered a nice little graph in The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, showing English's rate of acquisition of French words during the 11th-20th centuries: it starts to rise just before 1200 and peaks strongly around 1375. Seems like it took a while for the Norman influence to percolate into Middle English (or, at least, for that influence to become attested in written works).

Grant Hutchison

You've got that a little backwards. The Norman French took over England; by the 13th Century, they were starting to consider themselves English first. However, some of the most famous English kings--Richard I, for example--didn't speak English.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Yeah, I know: that's my history, or at least history immediately adjacent to my history.
The point I was making is that the English nobility at that time had strong historical (and contemporary) ties to France. Some had large estates in the English-owned parts of France. The French words that were coming into English at the time reflect the nature of the noble Norman conduit that was imported them: word relating to the law, administration, hunting, the arts, the military.

Grant Hutchison

New topic:

How is the word "muscley" spelled? Does the word exist? Should it?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

I'm pretty sure the correct word would be "muscled".

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

That would be correct, yes.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I'm pretty certain we can thank shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer for words like "muscley".

I'm a fan of that show, but it has definitely given us much slang.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

Lazarus, come forth!

I like making up new words. I have a scene in a story where the wine flows cornucopiously.

But I think it would be spelled 'muscly', as 'treacly' from treacle.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Jeeze, my joints are really stiff! Must be from sleeping on this rock.

The thread wasn't dead-- It was just pining. Pineing. Pining.

Looks wrong. They all look wrong.

Gillian wasn't a fatty, but she wasn't muscly, either. She barely had
enough strength to pick Jeff up and throw him out the window. Of
course, it was a garden-level window, which meant she had to throw
up. Oh my, I had no idea where that was headed. I seem to be in a
well full of things starting with "M". Such as molasses and mussels.

-- Jeff, in evitably

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

The OED comes down firmly for muscly, and gives it a long history going back to 1594 with the meaning "composed of muscle; exhibiting great muscular development".
It tells us that muscled ("furnished or endowed with muscle") is chiefly used with an adjectival or adverbial prefix (as in "well-muscled"), so it does a slightly different job most of the time.

Is there something wrong with muscular, with the meaning "characterized by muscle, having well developed muscles"? It's been around in that sense for 300 years.

Grant Hutchison