Fun fact about “asset”, etymologically it means “enough”. Since the conquest of England by William of Normandy, the common law was filled with Norman French terms that were generally poorly understood by English speakers, and therefore reinterpreted.
So for example, from a law that said to seize assetz (enough, compare with contemporary French assez) of a debtor’s properties to pay back his debt, people interpreted assetz as the plural of a word asset and figured it must mean, well, the meaning that asset has acquired in contemporary English.
There’s the same thing about treasure trove, etymologically it means “found”, it’s used as an adjective, as it’s the law for how to handle found treasure, but it ended up being interpreted as a noun and acquired the meaning of being a collection…
Fun fact about “asset”, etymologically it means “enough”. Since the conquest of England by William of Normandy, the common law was filled with Norman French terms that were generally poorly understood by English speakers, and therefore reinterpreted.
So for example, from a law that said to seize assetz (enough, compare with contemporary French assez) of a debtor’s properties to pay back his debt, people interpreted assetz as the plural of a word asset and figured it must mean, well, the meaning that asset has acquired in contemporary English.
There’s the same thing about treasure trove, etymologically it means “found”, it’s used as an adjective, as it’s the law for how to handle found treasure, but it ended up being interpreted as a noun and acquired the meaning of being a collection…
Perhaps when he was talking about being a great ASSet he meant her derrière…
Hey, look! It’s… what was her name again? Ceris!