A wondering wabout words.

Apr 28, 2005

We say "stereotypical" and "prototypical", not "stereotypal" or "prototypal".  Why then do we say not "archetypical" but "archetypal"?

Comments

on 2005-04-28 13:07:29.0, Joe Drymala commented:

Apparently both are accepted. But "typal" is obviously preferred, and I think we have no one to blame for that but the Jungians.

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and, further, on 2005-04-28 13:08:19.0, ogged commented:

Who is this "we"? Here.

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and, further, on 2005-04-28 13:22:23.0, ben wolfson commented:

As revealed by Googlefight, and my own introspection. It should be noted that "archetypical" makes a much better showing, in absolute numbers and proportionally, than does either "stereotypal" or "prototypal".

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and, further, on 2005-04-28 14:31:30.0, dave zacuto commented:

<a href=http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=sex&word2=death> this is hopeful

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and, further, on 2005-04-28 15:30:27.0, bitchphd commented:

Because that's what everyone else does.

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and, further, on 2005-04-28 15:52:36.0, ben wolfson commented:

But how did this arise, is the question.

We have always already said "archetypal".

(How annoying is it that Typepad's commenting system deletes such tags as <s> and <del>? Very annoying.)

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