A Linguistic Gripe

[omorka]

The terms "three-dimensional," "four-dimensional," and "multidimensional" are what used to be called barbarisms - smushings-together caused by English's mongrel roots.

Clearly, a di-mens-ion is one of two measurements. Length and width. x and y.

If you have three measurements, then you have trimensions. If you have four measurements, then you have quadmensions, or perhaps tetramensions. If you have an indefinate number larger than two, then you have multimensions.

This has bothered me for a long, long time. But English is unabashedly a bastard tongue, and no one cares about this particular barbarism except math teachers who teach ESL gifted kids.

Comments

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

Much of the lively charm of English comes from the chaos of languages that gave her birth. In any case, 'dimension' is not a bastardization.

Source: the 'Dictionary of Etymology,' by Chambers

dimension n. Before 1398 'dimencioun' measurement, size, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum; borrowed from Latin 'dimensionem' (nominative dimensio), from stem of dimetiri' to measure out ('di-', 'dis-' + 'metiri' to MEASURE);

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You can reassure your students that the whole word is latin. Chambers' didn't mention, but the 'di' or 'dis' prefix means 'off' or 'out.'

...of course, 'three' is thought to originally come from the old Hittite 'tri.' But that's really nitpicking.