From: stlatos
Message: 70104
Date: 2012-10-02
>There's also elicio but elecebra (e:-e-e), and elegans or eligans (that probably (one ex. of) analogy). Opt. changes and doublets aren't forbidden by some Neogrammarian stranglehold.
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> >
> > I seem to remember reading that elementum was from Greek via Etruscan. Is that true?
>
> It is true that you read that (possibly in Palmer), but the etymology is silly. Supposedly, Greek <elephanta> nt. pl. 'ivory (letters)' was borrowed into Etruscan, then corrupted into <elementa> in Latin. This is allegedly justified by Praenestine Etruscan <Melerpanta> 'Bellerophon', an extreme case of "obscurum per obscurius", since we do not know the route by which this name, lacking an etymology in the first place, reached the Etruscans of Praeneste.
>
> Another bad etymology (but agreeing with Sean's opt. sdl. methodology) regards <elementum> as a form of <alimentum>.
>There's no reason to think that the one meaning = ABC's was original (actually the opp.), and very unlikely that a random internal set (instead of the first 2-3, as usual) would ever have been so used for the whole.
> The most plausible view is that Roman schoolboys used *elemena 'the LMN's' as we use 'the ABC's', with all syllables but the last accented, since the letter-names were <el>, <em>, <en>.