Fomite

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Dr. Goodword
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Fomite

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Apr 07, 2020 7:08 pm

• fomite •


Pronunciation: fo-mait • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: An object or material likely to transmit infectious diseases from one person to another, such as doorknobs, money, dishes, utensils, and furniture.

Notes: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, today's Good Word is an "incorrect back-formation" from fomites, a plural noun. Actually, it is a perfect back-formation. Back-formations are based on misanalysis of words. Peas was a mass noun in Middle English; pea was back-formed from it. The Latin singular was fomes, which was used in English only a few times in the 17th century.

In Play: Anything we touch that can hold a bacterium or virus is a fomite: "Many viral infections are not spread by fomites but by via the air we breathe." That does not include the coronavirus: "The coronavirus seems to spread via fomites and as aerosols."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a back-formation from New Latin fomites, the plural of Latin fomes "tinder, kindling", a noun derived from fovere "to warm". Fomes also underlies fomentum "poultice", whence English foment, a different way of warming things up. Latin inherited this word from PIE dhegwh-/ dhogwh- "to burn, warm", which also produced Sanskrit dahati "burns", Russian žgu "I burn", Lithuanian degti "to burn", and Slovenian žgati "to burn". (Today's Good Word comes to us courtesy of Sue Gold of Westtown School. We hope she doesn't touch a fomite with the coronavirus on it.)
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Slava
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Re: Fomite

Postby Slava » Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:09 am

It turns out that surface contact transmission of COVID-19 is much less common than originally believed. So those fomites, at least, are not as dangerous as others.
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bbeeton
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Re: Fomite

Postby bbeeton » Wed May 26, 2021 3:37 pm

Every time I see the word "fomites", it's a struggle not to pronounce it like "phragmites".

I'm not sure why the different pronunciations. Neither is a "native" English word.

damoge
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Re: Fomite

Postby damoge » Thu May 27, 2021 11:15 am

Bbeeton, please, am confused.
What is the difference in pronunciation of the two?
phrag vs. fo is more than pronunciation, no?
mites and mites seem to be pronounced the same?
What am I missing here?
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Slava
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Re: Fomite

Postby Slava » Thu May 27, 2021 11:57 am

-mites v -mighties is the quibble, I believe.
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Re: Fomite

Postby bnjtokyo » Thu May 27, 2021 7:46 pm

I believe Bbeeton's point is that the pronunciation guide says "fomite" is pronounced "fo-mait" where the second syllable rhymes with "bait" while words like "stalagmite" are pronounced to rhyme with "bite"

damoge
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Re: Fomite

Postby damoge » Fri May 28, 2021 10:12 am

If you click on the pronunciation, it is "...mite".
"ai" in the pronunciation guides, is long i sound.
It is at times hard for me to recognize that, as it often doesn't "look" like that sound, but I'm trying hard to remember it.
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bbeeton
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Re: Fomite

Postby bbeeton » Fri May 28, 2021 3:03 pm

"Fo-mites" usually is pronounced with two syllables.

I have never heard "phrag-mi-tes" pronounced with other than three.
(Something like "frag-my-teez".) I've known about phragmites for much longer than about fomites, so that pronunciation is the model I naturally turn to. (And the earliest reports about fomites usually referred to the plural, hence the spelling similarity; I read more often than listen.)

Phragmites is a singular noun, the name of an invasive species of tall reed that grows in marshes and other wetlands. Not a "native" English word.

damoge
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Re: Fomite

Postby damoge » Fri May 28, 2021 4:26 pm

Thank you for that!
I'm from the East coast of America originally, and had always heard
phrag mites

Where are you?
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bbeeton
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Re: Fomite

Postby bbeeton » Fri May 28, 2021 8:23 pm

Damoge, I'm in Rhode Island now (for many years), but grew up in Baltimore. Both very East Coast U.S. I can't imagine living where there's not serious water nearby!

(Although my father spent a great deal of his life in the California desert, working for the Navy, and as he introduced me to that area, I could understand how someone could grow to love it just as much as I love the bays and rivers that feed the ocean.)


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