I know, I know, a bit geeky, but trust me, a deep dive into the history of vocabulary can be fun. I was preparing a presentation for teachers on some useful prefixes to teach students in mathematics and, of course, I couldn’t just leave it at providing them with a list. No, I went into the Latin or Greek roots of some of them and then showed teachers how unlocking the meaning of a prefix allows students to deduce the meaning of many unfamiliar words, not just the word they were teaching at the time.
Take the prefix uni- for example. Knowing that uni- means one allows students not only to know that unidirectional means going in one direction, but it helps them work out unilateral, universe, unite, unison, unicycle and unique. Frac- coming from the Latin means break or broken as in a fraction of a number. From there, we can work out the meaning of fracture, fractious, infraction (breaking an agreement) and refract. All very interesting, you may say, but where’s the fun?
I began looking into the word rectangle, meaning a right-angled polygon. I then became interested in the word ‘right’, which goes back to the Latin ‘rectus’, meaning ruled as in ruled in a straight line. This then made me think of right and left and how right handedness has been favoured. No wonder as right is associated with being straight, while left goes back to meanings of tired or weak. No wonder left-handed people feel hard done by!
Coming back to rectangle, the prefix rec- is related to several other prefixes, namely regi-, reg- and rex-. We can see the other meaning of ‘rule’ in regi- and rex- as in register, reginal or regina. Even with these regal words, we can see the relationship to being being kept straight. Then, with the prefix rec- we have rectify (to straighten out), correct, direct, erect, resurrect, misdirect and rectum. Rectum? Straight away, I had to look up why this word belonged with all the others. And for those of you as curious as I was, it refers to the final straight portion of the large intestine. Mystery solved.
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