How did it come about that aderabe in Yiddish came to mean, besides the obvious "on the contrary" as used in the Gemara to refute a suggestion, "be my guest?" It seems contrary to its original meaning (no pun intended)!
To figure this out, you have to deconstruct the word:
a = on (equivalent to Hebrew "al")
de = that (eq. "she")
rabe = great
When you put that together, you get something along the lines of "on that which is greater." So now I'm actually going to reverse my question. For the Yiddish, I suppose it would make in meaning "all the more so," but how would it mean "on the contrary" in Aramaic... any ideas?
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A blog run by a senior in high school, mainly discussing the topics of language and linguistics. And other cool stuff.
1 comment:
maybe aderabe meant "even moreso" and only later becaume "on the contrary"?
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