false cognate of the day

[kaberett]

Irish, answers: freagrann (etymology)
German, to ask: fragen (etymology)


I take some comfort from the fact that having spotted why it keeps tripping me up I might finally learn it...

Comments

[vass]

Oh, what a nice one.

That reminds me, I learned this a few days ago:

histo- or hist-: Ancient Greek ἱστός (histós, “web, tissue”). Whence histology.

But why histogram, then?

ἱστός:
1. mast
2. shinbone
3. (weaving) beam (of a loom; see usage notes)
4. (weaving) loom
5. (weaving) web

Usage notes: Unlike modern looms, the beam of an Ancient Greek loom stood upright.

So it's histogram like a mast, but histology and histamine like tissue or web, from weaving, from loom, because the beam of the loom is like a mast.

But not "mast cells": that's from the German "Mastzelle", and the Mast is as in animal fodder, which is not related to mastication.

[kaberett]

... W H A T

[vass]

I KNOW, RIGHT?

Mastication is from the Latin "I chew", originally from the Greek, "I grind the teeth".

I might be wrong about the German not being connected to the ship masts.

It's the second etymology here that mast cells are said to come from, and after that it all gets very hypothetical.