Latin's Influence on Modern English

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Johnson | Amo, Amas * * * Oh, Forget It. Latin words were earthy and vivid to Roman. They can be a curse in English. Economist, 8, 2018
https://www.economist.com/books- ... n-teacher-was-wrong

Note:
(a) About the title. The Latin infinitive amāre (English: to love) has these two conjugations: amō (I love) and amās (you love). The latter's full grammatical status is "second-person singular present active indicative."

grammatical mood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood
(indicative)

(b) "A small new book, 'That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means,' by Ross and Kathryn Petras [Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press (which Random House purchased in 2009), Sept 4, 2018], helps readers distinguish many [Modern English] words that are confusingly similar. * * * About 28% of the words in the 'Shorter Oxford Dictionary' come from that language. This huge layer of vocabulary was either borrowed directly, borrowed from Latin via French or coined in English from Latin roots. * * * What sort of person would coin antonym pairs like adjure and abjure (the former meaning to vigorous encourage someone to do something, the latter meaning to renounce)? The answer is the Roman sort. Ad and ab workday prepositions in Latin, the former usually meaning 'toward,' or 'at' (think of ad hominem) and the latter meaning '[away] from' (think abscond, abdicate and such). Iurare means to 'swear.' So in Latin, adiurare meant to swear to do something, and abiurare meant to swear of it. -- the ab and ad clear as day to your average Roman/  The problem is that words like adjure are not ordinary to Anglophones today. They were borrowed into English by classically trained scholars could assume that everyone who would use them would know Latin almost we well as a Roman. * * * [Yet] People [nowadays] are expected to know the likes of adjure without a lick of Latin,"
(i) abjure (vt only; Did You Know? / Synonym Discussion of ABJURE (compared with RENOUNCE and FORSWEAR) ): "formal [Definitions follow]"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abjure
(A) In Latin, jus (or ius) is a noun neuter.
(B) Latin alphabet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet
("It was not until the Middle Ages that the letter ⟨W⟩ (originally a ligature of two ⟨V⟩s) was added to the Latin alphabet, to represent sounds from the Germanic languages which did not exist in medieval Latin, and only after the Renaissance did the convention of treating ⟨I⟩ and ⟨U⟩ as vowels, and ⟨J⟩ and ⟨V⟩ as consonants, become established. Prior to that, the former had been merely allographs 异体字 of the latter")

This explains the spelling in the facade of Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where both U and V are carved as V. See Sam M '07, Time in a Bottle. MIT Admissions, Oct 20, 2005 (blog)
mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/time_in_a_bottle
(ii) adjure (vt only; What is the Difference Between adjure,entreat, importune, And implore?: " 'Adjure' implies advising as well as pleading, and is sometimes accompanied by the invocation of something sacred")
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adjure
(iii) workaday (adj only; from English noun workday): "ORDINARY"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/workaday
(iv) ad hominem (adj and adv; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem
(v) abscond (vi; Did You Know?): "formal  to depart secretly and hide oneself"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abscond
(vi) abdicate (Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abdicate

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(c) "English has dipped into the Latin well so often that it has frequently concocted words that would be confusing even if you speak Latin as well as Augustus [[63 BC- 14 AD; the first Emperor of the Roman Empire (27 BC-14 AD (40 years)]. English has pairs like alternate/alternative, fortunate/fortuitous, discrete/discreet, economic/economical, historic/historical, incredible [meaning 'unbelievable;' from Latin adjective incredibilis]/incredulous [from Latin adjective incredulus] and many others. These use the same Latin roots twice, to make two different words with rather different shades of meaning. You are not necessarily ingenuous, or even a dolt in classics, if you confuse that word with ingenious. They both use the root gignere, to be born [vs parere to give birth; generare father, procreate, whose descendant is English verb generate]. ('Ingenious' means born with ability. The meaning of 'ingenuous' went from free-born, to honest, to candid, to naive.)"
(i) Both American- and British-English define alternate the same.

Alternate (adj): "1 : attributive  every other; every second  <she was asked to attend on alternate days>
1.1 : (of two things) each following and succeeded by the other in a regular pattern  <alternate bouts of intense labour and of idleness>
1.2 : botany (of leaves or shoots) placed alternately on the two sides of the stem
2 : North American  another term for alternative  <a novel set in an alternate universe>"

For ONLY definition 2 North American, see
alternate (adj): "5 : alternative2 [which is defined as 'different from the usual or conventional']  <did not approve of their son's alternate lifestyle>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alternate
(ii) Both English adjectives fortunate and fortuitous are derived from the same Latin noun feminine fors: "luck, chance"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fors

See also Fortuna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna
(goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion)
(iii) Both English adjectives discrete and discreet came ultimately (through the same French adjective discret) from the same Latin adjective "discretus, from Latin, past participle of discernere to separate, distinguish between — more at DISCERN")
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discreet
(iv)
(A) economical (adj): "marked by careful, efficient, and prudent use of resources : THRIGTY  <an economical shopper>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/economical
(B) economy (n; etymology: ultimate from Ancient Greek)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/economy
(v) The English noun history is also ultimately from Ancient Greek.
(vi) The main difference between ingenious and ingenuous is the first vowel, be it British and American English (same for that vowel).

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(d) "English is a Germanic language, So is Icelandic. That language from separated by half an ocean from the Latinising fever of the Renaissance, and its guardians have made an effort to purge those Latinate words that did sneak in. As a result, it has words like fotsnyrting for pedicure: both means something like 'foot-grooming,' but the 'foot' is clearer in Icelandic."
(i) Latinate (adj): "of, relating to, resembling, or derived from Latin"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Latinate
(ii) Icelandic-English dictionary:
* fótsnyrting (noun feminine; from [noun masculine] fótur foot +‎ [noun feminine] snyrting grooming, care)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fótsnyrting
(iii) pedicure (n; French pédicure, from Latin ped-, [noun masculine] pes foot + [verb] curare to take care, from [noun feminine] cura care)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedicure

(e) "One need not go so far as English poet William Barnes [1801 – 1886], who wanted to revive words like earthtillage in place of agriculture. In effect (or is it affect?), he wanted to make English more like Icelandic. * * * It would rob English of some of its subtlety resulting from a history of borrowing: triplets like kingly (Germanic), regal (Latinate) and royal (Latin via french) have a different feel. But the roots that grip an English speaker's heart are the Germanic ones, closest to the words of everyday life."
(i) agriculture (n; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin [noun feminine] agricultura [agriculture], from [noun masculine] ager field + [noun feminine] cultura cultivation — more at ACRE, CULTURE)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agriculture

Middle English developed after Norman Conquest.
(ii)
(A) kingly (adj; First Known Use  14th century in the meaning of "having royal rank"): "of, relating to, or befitting a king"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kingly
(B) The English adjective regal is ultimately from Latin adjective regalis, from noun masculine rex king.
(C) royal (adj and n; etymology)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/royal
(iii) "the roots that grip an English speaker's heart are the Germanic ones, closest to the words of everyday life"

Middle English (c 1100 - c 1500). The History of English; How English went from an obscure Germanic dialect to a global language, undated
https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html
("While humble trades retained their Anglo-Saxon names (eg baker, miller, shoemaker, etc), the more skilled trades adopted French names (eg mason, painter, tailor, merchant, etc). While the animals in the field generally kept their English names (eg sheep, cow, ox, calf, swine, deer), once cooked and served their names often became French (eg beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, venison, etc)" )
(A) There is no need to read the rest of this article. I am sure someday this column (Johnson) will discuss French influence on English.
(B) As for English noun pig, www.collinsdictionary.com says from "pigge, of obscure origin."  Compare www.etymonline.com ("probably from Old English [of Anglo-Saxon] picg") with www.merriam-webster.com ("Middle English pigge[;] First Known Use: 13th century") and oxforddictionaries.com ("Middle English: probably from the first element of Old English picbrēd acorn, literally ‘pig bread’ (ie food for pigs)").