The Origin Of The Word Incontinent

[rusty pins]

This may be a little off the subject here, but my mind works in strange but analitical ways.

[BabyJune]

Actually, a continent "holds back" the water; otherwise the land would flood. So if a continent is a mass of land that holds back water, wouldn't "incontinent" mean an inability to hold back water? You, my friend, are dealing with an insane writer here. Ya never know what I'll come up with.

[wetman]

in - not (insane, invalid)

[diaperpt]

rusty pins - cute and clever thoughts. Baby June - nice response.

[nappyboymids]

An older usage of the word - or rather of 'continence' - refers to chastity or celibacy (as in holding oneself together, restraint); I think this usage has probably diminished as the definition relating to bladder control has become the most commonly known one ...

[babykeiff]

This was discussed between Marcuss and myself http://www.dailydiapers.com/board/index.php?showtopic=15595&page=2#entry437659

[wetman]

Where is your linguistics degree from?

[babykeiff]

Where is your linguistics degree from?

Actually, I am Irish

[wetman]

Oh, that's . . .

[willnotwill]

I always found the fact that inbred and inbreeding have rather different connotations amusing.

[rusty pins]

Actually, a continent "holds back" the water; otherwise the land would flood. So if a continent is a mass of land that holds back water, wouldn't "incontinent" mean an inability to hold back water? You, my friend, are dealing with an insane writer here. Ya never know what I'll come up with.

[wetatnight]

probably some medical science person way back in past came up with a scientific sounding name for why some people can't hold their pee.

[Dubious]

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin incontinns, incontinent-, unrestrained : in-, not; see in-¹ + continns, continent; see continent².]

[square_duck]

I was going to say much the same as Keiff, in that to find the true answer for this, you ave to go back and look at the root of the word. Incontinence being a medical term has it's roots in latin. All medical terminology is rooted in Latin, for what ever reason I don't know. being from a medical family, I have had to put up with this popping up from time to time. I guess it's because it's more specific than anything else.

English is a bastardized language made up of many Latin based (IE 'romance') languages German, French, Italian,

an d of coarse Latin. I think the Legal profession also uses a lot of Latin terms also....of that I'm not 100% on

Anyways, so Keiff has the right idea in that to find the origin of a word or term you have to go to the root, an din this case, you have to go back to the Latin origin, where most current western languages started from.

[Bettypooh]

American English has so many different word roots that sometimes you simply cannot pin down an origin I'm a 'word nut' as one friend puts it, finding that learning about words and using them is fun Strangely, my English classes were my worst school subject and I hated them

[willnotwill]

Given OED's historical tracings of the word, it turns out that the urine/bowels version of it comes later (18th century).

The term for one unable to contain his sexual urges goes back the the 14th century.

[babykeiff]

...

All medical terminology is rooted in Latin, for what ever reason I don't know. being from a medical family,

...

[willnotwill]

[wetman]

Aufwiedersehn which means until [we] see [each other] again.

While "Wiedersehen" is a concatenation of the terms "wieder" (again) and "sehen" (to see), "Auf" (onto) is a separate word.

[babykeiff]

While "Wiedersehen" is a concatenation of the terms "wieder" (again) and "sehen" (to see), "Auf" (onto) is a separate word.

[wetman]

TL/DR

[DavidMW]

[babykeiff]

TL/DR

[babykeiff]

DavidMW,

[DavidMW]

It's not more recent knowledge. I got my linguistics degrees before 88. And a lot of what I wrote dates back to the 1800s, although it is still current today.

There are no native languages at the south pole, btw. I assume you were actually referring to the folks up north. But the Eskimo-Aleut languages actually have about the same number of root words for snow as English does. Those languages do have more complex morphology, though.