OT: Errors in Reporting

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:23 AM -0500 3/25/04, Kathleen E. Miller wrote:
>The last one argued with
>me until she was blue in the face that the root of yotta had to be Latin
>based on AHD4, and M-W's "perhaps alteration of Italian otto eight" was
>just plain wrong  "cause Italian, as you know, comes from the Latin and
>therefore....." And I pointed out that the Latin for eight comes from the
>Greek for eight and she might as well just go all the way back and says
>it's all Greek like Random House does.

Not to quibble, but...

Is there any evidence that Lat. _octo_ derives from Gk. _okto_, as
opposed to reflecting a parallel development from the Indo-European?
They're cognates with each other, of course, and with Proto-Germanic
root of _eight_, but neither is a borrowing from the other as far as
I know.

Larry