the history of Greco-Roman hybridizing

[Matthew Gordon]

Richard Bailey in _Nineteen-Century English_ cites an 1881 complaint about
such violations of the "Law of Etymological Harmony":
"...since bi is a Latin prefix and gamy a Greek root, bi-gamy is a mongrel
word, or which is the Greek for 'mongrel,' a hybrid. The word should be,
strictly, di-gamy." (Abbott & Seeley _English Lessons for English People_).

That gives you an earlier example too in "bigamy" though maybe this
shouldn't count since the hybridizing took place in Latin (according to the
OED).

Sorry I don't have a page reference for the Bailey citation; the book is at
home and I'm copying the quote from lecture notes.


On 10/23/06 3:57 PM, "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:

> the correspondent who asked about Greco-Roman hybrids is enjoying the
> playful suggestions people have made, but now wonders how recent the
> phenomenon is.  anything before 1892, when "homosexual" was devised?
>
> meanwhile, another correspondent did a search of various sources, and
> found "hybrid" several places, and nothing else.  the OED says, under
> "hybrid":
>
> 2. transf. and fig.    a. Anything derived from heterogeneous
> sources, or composed of different or incongruous elements; in Philol.
> a composite word formed of elements belonging to different languages.
>
> with examples:
>
>   1879 MORRIS Eng. Accid. 39 Sometimes we find English and Romance
> elements compounded. These are termed Hybrids. 1895 F. HALL Two
> Trifles 28 The ancient Romans would not have endured scientistes or
> scientista, as a new type of hybrid.
>
> the first of these is not Greco-Roman.  the second is a Latin stem
> with a Greek affix, not two stems, with one from each language, like
> my original examples.
>
> arnold
>
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