#whatstheword #alternatevsalternative #english #etymologyexplained #grammartips … – LinkedIn

Like Comment Transcript Raise your hand if you think alternate and alternative are interchangeable. They look similar, they sound similar, but they do not mean the same thing. Let me break it down for you. The reason they appear so confusingly similar is because both words ultimately originate from the same root. Alter in Latin, which means the other. On their way to English, they shared the road for a while, and then they went their separate ways. Alter became alternates, which means every other. In 15 century Latin, altanus took the form alternate. And this was used in the sense of doing first one thing and then the other. The past participle of this word was alternators. By early 16th century, it was adopted in English as alternate with the meaning to do something by turns. It’s both a noun and a verb. So for example, if you can go to school by car or by bike, and you choose to use the car one day and the bike the next, you’re alternating. Now there’s a twist to this. Since the original usage had to do with two choices, it followed that the first choice would come into play
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