(non-native speaker)

Is there a reason why the English language has “special” words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?

And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.

  • cordlesslamp@lemmy.today
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    5 months ago

    Can someone explain why a job application called “resume”, like in Play/Pause/Resume?

    How is it relevant?

    (I’m learning English as second language).

    Edit: So we’re speaking French now? What? Why? You guys butchered so many words already, can you just made up one more?

    Ps: Is that also the case with the word “fiancé”? I’ve been wondering where the hell did that “é” came from.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      Because it’s actually supposed to be spelled résumé, being a word borrowed from the French

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      5 months ago

      As part of a job application, it’s called a résumé (reh-zuh-may).

      To continue playing something, it’s resume (ruh-zoom).

    • Mr_Wobble@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      “They both come from the same French word, résumer. The Latin root of that word could be translated as “to take back” (and you can see that use on occasion, as when a deposed king “resumes the throne”), but the core meaning that links resume and résumé could better be translated as “to come back to” — in one case, to come back to an activity; in the other, to go over a series of events again in brief.”

      But I’ll tell you as a native English speaker, we almost never think about words like that having different meanings and origins. We’re just really used to homographs and homophones.

    • emmanuel_car@kbin.run
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      5 months ago

      Here is a good explanation of both words, basically play/resume comes from Latin (take up again) and CV/resume should be résumé, the past participle of resumer, to sum up, because you’re takin a summary of your experience.

    • Lemmeenym@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      The job application one should be pronounced with a long a as the second e. Despite the last e not being silent the u is still elongated. It’s a recent adoption from French. Even though they are spelled the same the two words are unrelated.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        5 months ago

        the u is still elongated

        Eh? Resume is /ɹəˈʒuːm/ or /ɹəˈzjuːm/. Résumé is /ˈɹɛz.(j)ʉˌmeɪ/. That’s in my accent and other accents will vary in the precise vowels used. But because the accent is on the first syllable in résumé, the vowel becomes de-emphasised and, in many accents, more centralised. And that is, as far as I’m aware, nearly universal among English speakers.