Attempts to Latinize the English language sometimes missed the mark entirely. The word sissors received a silent C based on the misconception that it derives from the Latin scindere, meaning “to split.” But the term actually has its roots in the Latin cisorium, meaning “cutting implement.” Elsewhere, iland became island by a mistaken derivation from the Latin insula, rather than from the Germanic iegland, saddling us with five centuries and counting of an erroneous S. And sovereign comes from the Latin superanus (“highest one”), not the Latin regnare (“to reign”) as one scribe apparently
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