Aim
Aim (v.) is said to come originally from Latin aestimare "appraise, determine the value of", coming to English through Old French aesmer and esmer as well as Old North French amer, all still meaning "to value, rate; count, estimate".
Etmonline says the English meaning "apparently" developed from similar senses, i.e. "calculate" and so forth. I find it interesting that it also points out (but then seems to disregard) that the "Intransitive sense 'intend, attempt' (late 14c.) was used by Shakespeare but is now considered colloquial". This could indicate that it may have been used in a way similar to (and might also explain the origins of) colloquial "cowboy" usage, e.g. "I aim to go fishing tomorrow."
The clear meaning of that sentence is that the speaker intends to go fishing. The modern Swedish verb ämna means both "intend" and in other situations "aim". Norstedt's explanation, is that it and its noun form, ämne, come into Old Swedish from Latin as well (I'll guess through German), except that the original forms are related to op'us -- "work". I found no correlations between any of these words when checking Google Translate for Icelandic, Norwegian or Danish translations, all of which seemed surprising far from the Swedish. Whether a modern Swede would put it this way or not I don't know, but grammatically I think "Jag ämnar fiskar i morgon" ("I aim/intend to go fishing tomorrow") is correct, and I think there's at least a fair chance that aim doesn't come from French.
Comments
Post a Comment