Monday, September 12, 2022

The apothecary

Generally speaking, the higher up you go with European languages, the easier things get.

What's the French word for conference? "Conference." What's the German word for psychology? "Psychologie." Easy. But for "pharmacy," German uses the word Apotheke. For those familiar with Shakespeare, the Middle English cognate was "apothecary."
"I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, which late I noted."
Not as guess-able as the French "la pharmacie" but WAY better than the Korean 약국 or the Japanese 薬屋 .

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