Monday, January 3, 2022

A Century of Co-operation. Or of Cooperation.

 Awhile ago, I reflected that the Twentieth Century was described using tele-prefixed, 'from here, to there' relationship, words: telegraph, telegram, telephone, television, teleporter . . .


And I speculated that the Twenty-first Century might be a Century of co-, com- and con-prefixed words, words signifying 'here *and* there' relationships.


These co-prefixed words, however fall into two categories: of equal relations and unequal relationships.


In the former is conversation, community, co-operation and so on.


The latter, unequal relationship words, however, always seem to be malign: coercion, compliance, cooperation as examples: the latter being a very important contrast to its better, hyphenated form, co-operation.


Comments? 

No comments: