Monday, November 2, 2009

Variations on a Theme- Words from Fac, Fact, Fect, Fict

Most of the many words using this root still have a clear idea of doing or making. A fact is something done, or made true. A factory is where things are made. The manu- in manufacture is Latin for ‘by hand’, as in manuscript.
Fiction is something made up in your head – whether a story or a lie.
Facile means, literally, ‘able to be done’. It has come to mean ‘easy to do, requiring little thought or skill’. So a facile answer or person is a shallow or unconvincingly glib one. Facility is easy skill as in speaking Chinese with facility. A facility makes your life or work easier – it might be a building, room, or piece of equipment.
To affect a person or thing is to do something to (ad-) it. What has been done to it, that is, the result or consequence of an action, is an effect, literally ‘done from’ (ex-). You can also effect a change, an arrest, or a cure, that is, do it or bring it about. An efficient method or machine does or performs its function with little wasted effort.
Something infected is literally ‘done in’. Something has got into it and is affecting it for the worse. Wounds may get infected by bacteria. Your mind might be infected by doubt.
The prefix per- means ‘through’ or else ‘thoroughly’. A perfect piece of work is one that has been gone through or done completely.
Other words using the fac root and its variants include affection, defect, deficient, factor, and proficient. Even the suffix -ify is related. To beautify, unify, or petrify something means to make it more beautiful, make it one, or turn it into stone.
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