OT: Errors in Reporting

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:28 AM -0500 3/25/04, Kathleen E. Miller wrote:

>>Quibbles are fine. My degree's in History, so I only know what the
>>dictionaries tell me. And in this instance the word wasn't in the
>>OED and AHD4, RH and M-W all had something different. Random House
>>said it was from Greek iota. M-W said it was "perhaps alteration of
>>Italian otto eight" and AHD4 said it was an
>>Alteration of octo– " which lead to looking up octo which has
>>"Greek okta-, okt- Latin octo-" and "Greek okta-, okt-, okt- (from
>>okt) & Latin octo-, oct-, from octo ." So is it safe to say they're
>>"related by derivation, borrowing, or descent."

Sorry; the scope of my quibbling was restricted to the very minor
aside within your response to your colleague that contained the
assertion that "I pointed out that the Latin for eight comes from the
Greek for eight"; I was pointing out that (as far as I can tell) it
doesn't, and that Lat. _octo_ and Greek _okto_ are sisters, rather
than the former being the daughter of the latter.  I wasn't saying
anything at all about _yotta_, with which I remain agnostic.  I know,
this is probably striking others on the list as just a lotta "yotta
yotta yotta".

Larry