I've never heard of the first word until learning about
Fortran standards. 

Dr Chaos <mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@NOSPAMyahoo.com> writes:

> I've never heard of the first word until learning about
> Fortran standards. 

Actually, I didn't know it before getting involved in the standard
either.  And it was actually quite a long time after I learned
what it meant before someone on this newsgroup explained the
derivation to me...and I realized I should have known that before.
So to pass the explanation along...

The "..scent" ending means something like "in the process of
becoming".  So a feature that is obsolescent is in the process of
becoming obsolete, but isn't there yet.

As was pointed out to me, this is the same meaning as the ending
has in adolescent; an adolescent is in the process of becoming an
adult, but isn't there yet.  Bunch of other similar words.

-- 
Richard Maine
email: my last name at domain
domain: sumertriangle dot net

Maybe, 	
	obsolete = obsolescent - luminescent  !?

"Dr Chaos" <mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc0h38j.8f5.mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@lyapunov.ucsd.edu...
> I've never heard of the first word until learning about
> Fortran standards.
>

Are deliquescents inherently obsolescent, :-) ?. Recall Prigogine's jarring
'From Being to Becoming'.

--
Ciao,
Gerry T.

Richard Maine wrote:
> 
> Dr Chaos <mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@NOSPAMyahoo.com> writes:
> 
> > I've never heard of the first word until learning about
> > Fortran standards.
> 
> Actually, I didn't know it before getting involved in the standard
> either.  And it was actually quite a long time after I learned
> what it meant before someone on this newsgroup explained the
> derivation to me...and I realized I should have known that before.
> So to pass the explanation along...
> 
> The "..scent" ending means something like "in the process of
> becoming".  So a feature that is obsolescent is in the process of
> becoming obsolete, but isn't there yet.
> 
> As was pointed out to me, this is the same meaning as the ending
> has in adolescent; an adolescent is in the process of becoming an
> adult, but isn't there yet.  Bunch of other similar words.
> 

Not being Anglosaxon by birth, but having learned Latin in school,
I could easily derive the meaning of these words :).

....scent is indeed a postfix that means something is in progress
(participium praesens, IIRC - school has been a while), like
doing, walking etc.

....ete is derived from such postfixes like ...atus, ...etus
(the participium perfectum, again IIRC, sorry I do not know/recall
the English names). English version: done, walked, ...

Regards,

Arjen