My son said the word “grammarically”, and I corrected him that the word is actually “grammatically”. He asked why that’s the case since it’s referencing grammar and not grammat. I could not find the answer via google. Please help.
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It might have something to do the root word gramma coming originally from the Greek word ‘grammatike’ meaning ‘the art of words’. And that the switch to T in the adverb derives from that.
basically when the adjective ends in “ic” it gets the -ally ending:
Basic – basically
Gramatic – grammatically
“Grammar” comes from the Greek word *grammatikē* (which referred to the study of letters or writing). The suffix “-ical” is used in English to turn nouns into adjectives when the noun comes from Greek or Latin. So, “grammatical” is formed to mean “related to grammar.”
why do we say most things? because people thought it worked and went with it.
Because English is weird and borrows and steals from wherever it can. The etymology of the word is from Greek, “gramma” (letter) to “gramatike techne” (art of letters) and while the noun came to English from French “grammaire” the adjective reflects, correctly, the Greek adjective root.
Why don’t we say grammarlicious?
There is an etymology here, but this question veers really close to a “false premise” violation (since why would it be more natural for it to be called ‘grammarically’ after all!)
Hey op if you are ever wondering about words like that just search for the word + etymology. It usually gives info on antiquated words and languages and you can see how things developed over time.
I see the answers but I have a follow up, why is it grammatically, but then numerically doesn’t also take the t instead of r? Should it not logically be numetically then?
(Assuming I’m not stupid, and that number and grammar come from the same language)
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