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From: eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Pray, Praying, Prayer
Message-ID: <298@ihnet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 10:53:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnet.298
Posted: Thu Sep 19 10:53:26 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 06:47:39 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 19

< oh no, mr. bill.  Don't eat me!! >
	While reading an ultra-religious magazine yesterday
(pleas, don't ask why I was reading such a thing),
I noticed the word "prayer".  Of course, I have seen the word before,
but I never really considered its etymology.
Usually, verbs become nouns by adding "ing", or perhaps by adding nothing.
You "offer" to God, and hence you give an "offering".
You "praise" God, and hence you give him your "praise".
You "pray", thus saying a "prayer"?
Did this "prayer" come from the days when only the priest
(whoever) could read the Bible and talk to God,
and therefore, you went to the temple to hear a pray-er (one who prays)?
Perhaps the meaning shifted, making "prayer" the thing that was said instead
of the one who was saying it.  Just a hypothesis.
Are there any other object-style nouns produced by "verb"er?
Anyone know the real answers?
-- 
	This .signature file intentionally left blank.
		Karl Dahlke    ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad


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