The case of the Hebrew word for "oxygen"...

Back in 2001, Joe Fineman wrote, regarding chemist Antoine Lavoisier
and the naming of oxygen:

# Amusingly, his mistake is perpetuated in the name for oxygen not
only
# in English, German, and Russian, but even in modern Hebrew (humtsan,
# from hamets = sour). I assume that that was done well after the
# mistake was discovered.
#
#
A little over a week ago, he told the story once again, this time
saying:

# A curious counterexample is the modern Hebrew word for oxygen,
# humtsan, which was coined long after Lavoisier's mistake was
# corrected, but perpetuates the misnomer, being derived from hamets
# "sour". Surely the language institute might have thought of naming
it
# for fire instead!

I personally think it's silly to coin (say) a Hebrew word on the model
of equivalents in European languages, when the European words are in
fact based on long-obsolete ideas about the concept that they denote.
Can Joe back me up?

daniel mcgrath
--
Daniel Gerard McGrath, a/k/a "Govende":
for e-mail replace "invalid" with "com"

Developmentally disabled;
has Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder),
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
& periodic bouts of depression.
[This signature is under construction.]

.

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