According to wiktionary infant comes from the Latin word infans, meaning "unable to speak". The term fans means "to speak".
Not sure if your Fanta can speak though :P
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
56 points (72.6% liked)
Showerthoughts
35273 readers
978 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Which is why we have "infantry." Soldiers who don't speak and follow orders
As a side note here, Fanta was derived from the German word „Fantasie“. I don’t think it needs translating.
Side note on the side note: Fanta was invented in nazi Germany because they couldn't import all the ingredients for Cola
🇬🇧 fantasy
🇮🇹 fantasia
🇫🇷 fantaisie
🇨🇿 fantazie
🇸🇰 fantazia
🇷🇺 фантазия
🇩🇪 FANTASIE
q.e.d.
Ah yes, a reference to the thousand year dream /s
So it wouldn’t be technically wrong to refer to mute people as infants right? /s
Probably falls into the same or similar category as calling them dumb, ones open a time an acceptable word to call them, but not really today. You know unless you are looking to insult them for being mute.
Right. The term that would probably fit the context would be "infantile", which again has negative connotations.
English has a long history of descriptors of intellectual deficiencies becoming contemporary insults then terms to be avoided because of that insensitive use, then the use continuing until everyone's kinda desensitized to it but now it can't be used in the original context.
See also: idiot, imbecile, moron, etc.
Currently going through that process: "retarded".
Happens in most languages.
Also, many languages have a link between deafness and lacking intelligence, e.g. dumb meaning "not able to speak" and "not intelligent".
In general, being sensitive to people with disabilities (both physical and mental) is a rather young concept, hence anything that would make someone not be able to be part of society is often also an insult.
That's also why e.g. terms linked deafness/muteness are often an insult to someone's intelligence, while e.g. terms linked to blindness are not. Blind people might be unable to perform some things seeing people are able to, but blindness doesn't necessarily limit someone's ability to be part of a society unaccomodating to people with disabilities.
Might change your thoughts on blindness as an insult by attending a sporting event where a ref or ump makes a questionable call...but broadly speaking, I think your comment is definitely a worthwhile contribution.
We're fans, yo!
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about?
You mean, what am I fanting about?
If infancy is childhood, is adulthood fancy?
It sure as shit doesn't feel fancy
Try it again, but with your pinky out.
And what does that say about Infantry?
It says that it's cheaper than adultry.
Also better for your marriage
Both of those are below elefants
Looks like it means unable + to speak. As in “This human is so young he can’t talk yet.”
If your drink is talking you should already not be driving
I just fan’t
💨
No
The in is not a prefix here. That's just how the word is spelled.
Actually, it is.
It derives from Latin infans where "in-" is a negation prefix and "fans" is the present participle form of "for", which translates to "to speak".
So an infant is a non-speaker (too small to speak).
But my opener was of course a joke, where I purpously misunderstood what "fant" is derived of, by claiming that "fant" must be the opposite of a child, thus an adult.
There are tons of Latin words in the English language and many of them only survived in English in their compounded form (e.g. "in-fant", where no other version of the actual verb in there survived, except the negated form).
Often the parts of these Latin root words have no meaning at all anymore in English, so that people don't notice that they are actually using compound words and also the original meaning of the word is forgotten.
Not a lot of people would associate "infant" with "hearing".