OT: A.Word.A.Day--erudite

[Chris Lim]

Received this from my daily word list. Somehow, the word just seems
appropriate, considering the content of today's cube-list. =)

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erudite (ER-yoo-dyt) adjective

   Learned.

[From Middle English erudit, from Latin eruditus, from erudire (to
instruct), from e- (ex-) + rudis (rude, untrained).]

A branch laden with fruits is closer to earth than the one without. The same
is true for people: the more the learning, the more humble one usually is.
And it shows in the etymology of today's word. If you're erudite, literally,
you've had rudeness taken out of you. Other words that share the same Latin
root are rude and rudiment.
-Anu

  "Over the decades he (Roy Porter) spent at the Wellcome Institute, part of
   University College, London, he became legendary for his industriousness
   and for the generous, erudite and inspiring leadership that he provided
   to students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars.
   Chandak Sengoopta; Books: A Stitch in Time; Independent (London),
   Dec 7, 2002.

  "Ironically, the best way of preserving the forbidding flavor in Chinese
   might be to leave many words in English, since liberally sprinkling one's
   text with English is considered erudite in Chinese (it is a kind of
   Chinese counterpart to the way in which Art-Language borrows foreign
   terms like Gedankenexperiment and prima facie)."
   Douglas R. Hofstadter; Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of
   Language, Basic Books, 1997.

This week's theme: words with interesting etymologies.