Etymologically Attracted to English Vocabulary

By Vincent Cheung from Burzum English QQgroup


Contravene
I assume most of your guys have no clue what this word means, cause you don’t use it at your daily work, or you find it’s way too much a “big word” for you to add to your current vocabulary building. To memorize it more efficiently, you are highly recommended to take a look at its “word origin”, ( only in case you cannot tell its origin without taking a close look).


Date: 1500-1600 Language: French Origin: contrevenir, from Late Latin contravenire, from Latin contra- ( CONTRA-) + venire 'to come'

This explanation speaks to me a lot.
contra =contre=against
and
venire obviously means to come.
Anyone who has gained a bit understanding of Francais shall know VENIRE’s definition. I suppose now you’ve got a rough idea what it means. Seemingly it means “ to do something agasint something”

If you happened to have a Collins Robert French Dictionary, look “Contrevenir” up, it says contrevenir a = to contravene, which means the English word “contravene” was derived from French with a considerably small change.

Then what the hell is the meaning of “contravene”? “ to do something that is not allowed according to a law or rule”, says the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. In Chinese, it means违犯（法律等）; 违反: （指事物）与（某事物）相抵触; 不合於

Here is also some synonyms for your future study : break, disobey, infringe, transgress, violate. Some of them are not easy English, be sure you won’t cram yourself too much.

Below are some examples I find in dict.yodao.com（ finest online E-C dictionary）， for you to get a better understanding of this word.

1. We will strictly investigate and prosecute all cases of land use that contravene laws and regulations.
对各类土地违法违规案件都要严肃查处。
2. Unfair competition in this Law refers to acts of operators which contravene the provisions of this Law, damage the lawful rights and interests of other operators, and disturb the socio-economic order.
本法所称的不正当竞争，是指经营者违反本法规定，损害其他经营者的合法权益，扰乱社会经济秩序的行为。
3. Any interference in one country's domestic affairs by another country contravenes the UN charter
任何干涉他国内政的行为都是违反联合国宪章的（不才翻译的）

4. The above-mentioned clauses should conform with state law , if there are places to contravene state law, subject to state law without exception.
以上条款应该与国家法律相一致，若有与国家法律相抵触的地方，则一律以国家法律为准。
Note: abovementioned is not formal legal English. Aforementioned would seem more professional.
5. No amendment to this Law shall contravene the established basic policies of the People's Republic of China regarding Hong Kong.
本法的任何修改，均不得同中华人民共和国对香港既定的基本方针政策相抵触。

Now tell me what’s the meaning of contravention. It’s unforgivable of you not to recognize it after I waste a lot of my previous time trying to analyze the word contravene, of which for the sake of your easy memory. Contravention, ofc means contravening, violation, infringement.

Conform

There is a bolded “conform” in sentence 4. conform=con(together)+ form=to form together=to fashion fo the same form=to comply with the usages o the Church of England….=to obey a law, rule. Confederation, conspire, conception, to name a few, are all prefixed by con(together). Take conspire for an example, conspire=con(together) + spirare (to breathe)+ ( sit so close that that a bunch of people are even) breathing together =他们一个鼻孔出气啊，他们是同伙的，正在密谋什么吧。 So, in Chinese, conspire means（与他人）密谋（尤指干坏事. Inspire, aspire, respire, to name a few, are also suffixed by spirare. Do you know their meanings and usages? .

Sorry for bringing this again, I mean, how do you expect to have an excellent of English if you even don’t know those basic French, like breathe.

Breathe: Respirer.
She is still breathing: Elle respire encore.


Below are a couple of sentences for you memory of conspire.
A group of men were charged conspiring against the duly elected government.

1.一伙人被指控阴谋推翻选举产生的合法政府。

2.Events seemed to be conspiring to bring about his ruin.
许多事好象协同促成了他的失败。

3. The bad weather conspire with some other unpleasant cause to ruin our picnic.
坏天气加上其他一些不愉快原因使我们的野餐令人大为扫兴。

As a consultant, I will try to use more nouns instead of verbs, to make myself look more professional. Below is a few commonly used phrases you should master.
In compliance with , In Conformity with, in accordance with, In agreement with <> In Contravention with, In contradiction with?

Come on, don’t take it for granted, it’s “in contradiction TO”, for the sake of Virgin Mary.

Etymologically speaking, there are very limited prefixes in English, compared to its tens of millions of vocabularies. Not surprisingly, after a little etymological analysis, this contraction brings us back to contra-. Thanks contraction

Contraception

Note that contra, (counter, anti ) is one of the most commonly used prefix in English, it means “acting against something, or opposite to something”. It’s very important for you to keep this prefix in mind, cause with enormous possibility, you are gonna come across this prefix more often than you think. Why do you think you find it’s hard to memorize and guess the meaning of words like contraception?

1. World-wide, in spite of the more frequent use of contraception, women are still undergoing a great number of abortions.
在全世界，妇女除了更频繁地使用避孕手段以外，她们仍然正在遭受大量流产。
2. Yet today's Italy has one of the world's lowest birth rates, thanks to near-universal defiance of Vatican teaching on contraception.
然而，今天的意大利是全球生育率最低的国家之一，这还多亏了对梵蒂冈避孕教义的近乎普遍的蔑视。
3. Under the polical pressure, FDA recently disapproved over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception, which is to say emergency contraception are to be through prescription only.
美国医药局FDA迫于政治压力禁止紧急避孕药的销售，也就是说只有凭医生的处方才可以拿到紧急避孕药
(比起发达国家，中国真是什么都能做，什么都能搞得到，正如一个老外朋友所说的，他觉得，在中国，nothing is impossible)。

As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen this word for ages, and seemingly I’m not supposed to know this word, according to the law of memory, but I do. If you think someone has to have a photographic memory to remember a great number of English words, then you are missing the point. My memory is not even above the average. I forget things, but I won’t forget where do I get an ice cream in a convenience store, cause ice cream is logically linked to a horizontal freezer, isn’t? So how could I possibly forget the meaning of contraception? It’s constituted by contra + ception （Conceive( 怀孕，构思，孕育) concept conception） , and Conception means pregnancy. Those are frequently used words that you are most likely to know. Isn’t etymology making it a lot easier for you to memorize words?

Now you can guess the meaning of counter-clockwise or anticlockwise? It’s not a shame if you cannot figure out it instantly, cause I’m sure you won’t forget it after consulting the dictionary, like Longman or Collins. What? You don’t have a read dictionary? You are kidding? What Kingsoft? Are you just shitting me?

I feel very bored now, so I will just give Part 1 an end for now. Thanks for reading. This is just “the tip of the iceberg” of what I want to etymologically tell you. I hope it at least some sort of inspiring to you.

To be continued…