Python 2.0 Quick Reference

[Alex Martelli]

"David LeBlanc" <whisper at oz.nospamnet> wrote in message
news:9el338$1es$2 at 216.39.170.247...
    ...
> The American Heritage Dictionary likes supersede too, although supercede
> makes more sense if it's related to succede in any way. Of course
> sense never stopped the English language.

For once, the English language has it right:-) -- and so does the
web: google gives me 163,000 hits for "supersede" vs 36,000 for
"supercede".  Anyway, the etymology of the word is related to
Latin verb "sedere" - meaning "to sit".  Literally, to "supersede"
is to "sit higher" (or to "sit upon":-).  I suspect (but don't
have my OED at hand) that "supercede" is a back-formation that
comes exactly from the fact that *MANY English words of Latin
origin end in "-cede" (from Latin verb "cedere", "to yield" or
"to go"), while "sedere" seems to have given fewer English words
OF THIS FORM ("preside", "reside", "dissident", "sedentary",
etc, are not immediately recognizable as cognates to 'supersede'!-).


Alex