this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Fun fact: "nuclear" ultimately comes from the Latin nucula, 'little nut'. The c and l being adjacent is the result of metathesis, similar to pronouncing "ask" as "ax".
Is that because we exist within a nut?
Or something like that, I don't know. I don't remember anything from the "the universe in a nutshell" book.
Now go further back. Where does the latin word nucula come from?
went further back lol
Latin: Nux - nut nuculus - diminutive of nut ("little nut")
Proto-Indo-European: kneu - nut
I can't find much on where the -culus suffix originated, which seams to be the the place we would want to look if trying to tie the pronunciation of nuclear to the earliest etymological root.
Stop, you're gonna make me nux!
-ulus according to Wiktionary:
From Proto-Italic *-elos (whence Faliscan -𐌄𐌋𐌏𐌔 (-elos)), from Proto-Indo-European *-elós, thematized from Proto-Indo-European *-lós.[1] Cognate with Proto-Germanic *-ilaz and *-ulaz, whence no longer productive English -le (as in dimple and nozzle), Dutch -el, German -el.
So the PIE for little nut would be something like *knewelós
I don’t think the nuclear engineer wants the furries to know about ‘little nut’
Did I ax you?