Corpora: tetragram, *quadrigram

Christopher Bader (cbader@MIT.EDU)
Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:23:16 -0400

>-----
>In short, Quadrigram would be the most agreeable form. Another argument:
>Bi-, Tri-,... next should be Quadri- (it's not Bu-, Tru-,...). Tetragram is
>out, because Tetra- is Greek, Bi- and Tri- are Latin.
>-----

This argument has it backwards.

I was taught that prefixes should come from the same language as the root.
And, when you think about it, 'two-pedal' and 'bi-footed' sound pretty
ridiculous.

Bi-gram sounds just as ridiculous to anyone who learned Greek and Latin
in school because it attaches a Latin prefix (bi- < Latin bis 'twice')
to a Greek root (-gram < Greek gramma 'letter'). Di-gram is preferred
since it uses the Greek prefix di- < Greek dis 'twice'.

For the same reason, tetragram (cf. Greek tetrakis 'four times') is to be
preferred to quadrigram, since quadri- is a Latin prefix.

Christophorus Baderus Grammaticus
MIT Linguistics