Does anyone know where that word came from? I mean, we were reading in a paper today and it struck me (not the first time, honestly…) how odd that word is. It’s a combination of three English words…like we used to spell it out in a sentence, but then we said it so often that we randomly decided to make it one word… Whose decision was that?!
4 Replies to “"Nevertheless"…”
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that’s not as bad as “heretofore.” it’s a word. i read it in a psych study.
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From the OED (Oxford English Dictionary, basically THE source for etymological questions):
Nevertheless:
from NEVER adv + THE adv + LESS adv Cf. earlier NATHELESS adv, NETHELESS adv, and NOTHELESS adv Cf. also NEVERTHEMORE adv
First found in print in 1382.
a. Notwithstanding; despite that; nonetheless; all the same.
Heretofore:
f. HERE adv 16 + TOFORE, OE [Old English] toforan; cf. MDu [Middle Dutch] hiertevoren, Ger [Germanic] hierzuvor
First found in print in 1350.
a. adv. Before this time; before now; in time past; formerly.
And if you’re curious, you can look online and see the actual quotations from the 1300s and beyond.
Okay so I don’t know that that actually answers any questions, but I’m kinda confused about what the big deal is… It’s just like the adverbial suffix -ly (“friendly” “slowly” etc.), which originally came from the word “like” (so “friend + like”, you get the point). Really things like that happen all the time… except linguists think it’s exciting instead of “bad” and “random” š
Thank you, Dr. Elizabeth š
I was just curious how old the word was…apparently, it’s a lot older than I thought… As far as the suffix “-ly” goes, me being a non-linguist, I’d consider that to be different since “-ly” and “like” are not the same words…maybe derived from the same word, but not the “same”… Perhaps in linguist terms, they are the same…but I’m a lowly scientist and know nothing of such things…
However, “nonetheless” and “heretofore” are single words made up of three words that sound like they used to be a phrase of separate words…not derivations or suffixes like “-ly”…they’re whole words slapped together… Whatever…I still call shenanigans on that…
i believe that kind of thing happens because of space efficiency in newspapers. at least, that’s how it became acceptable for “can not” to be “cannot”