Tuesday, October 26, 2010
No, I really don't know why
Litsemer - lit. "facemeasurer'. A hypocrite. Etymologically speaking, the word came from the roots for "face" and "change", but somewhere along the way, the second syllable men' changed to mer. So whenever I read about a character in a book behaving hypocritically, I imagined him measuring the faces of the other characters, engaging in a sort of phrenology of the facial features so as to asses his chances of getting away with backhanded talk and dastardly actions.
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Actually I don't believe that "men' -> mer" transformation took place here. "...mer" is usually the ending of the words that describe a person or an instrument that is used for measuring: угломер (uglomer) - instrument for measuring angles, костюмер (costiumer) - a person, that selects ("measures") costumes for actors.
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