Why is this English word for intercept instead of intercept?
A recent question about the word inception led me to look into discussions of the verb inceive, which turned up a discussion in Harry Bochner, Simplicity in Generative Morphology (1992), of all words that follow the pattern conception/conceive, deception/deceive, perception/perceive, and reception/receive. As Bochner observes, the gap at inception may hold some interest, but a more challenging issue for a person trying to identify predictable patterns of back formation involves the existence of interception/interception where a person seeking regular and relatively uncomplicated patterns might have expected to find interception/interception.
Borchner attempts to translate appropriate morphological rules for various word pattern families, but (as he says) “The less regular the rule is, the more expensive it is to learn words that exemplify it”. “We still can’t predict the form of a non-ion noun given a root if it is’real’, but when we do take it, can we’t predict it. ” Instead of interceiving -ceive/cept words consistently, we get the result that it is cheaper to learn word intercept than interceiving. I.e. not intercept but intercept, which is not not intercept. ” ”
Analytically this argument may make sense, but I don’t think that it satisfactorily explains why English adopted interception/intercept in the first place; perhaps it (the argument) doesn’t attempt to do so. Why does English have “interception/intercept” when
we could say “interception” and not “intercept”?
How can I find answers to our own questions?
I thought that the verbal form of ‘interception’ may have once been “interceive” but in American Football, commentators used ‘intercept’ and ‘intercepted’ erroneously and that caught on and also stuck. ‘Interception’, ‘Conception’, and ‘Reception’ come from the Latin word ‘caper’ (to take). Is it logical that they all mean the same suffix in english?
Because some English speakers who felt the need to use the Latin word interceptus in English, did so, creating intercept (Interception came later in a similar manner. I think so and it’s useful or appropriate to express that fact in an English words page).
The Latin word “conceive”, “deceive” and “perceive”, which have similar Latin origins in their -ipere / -eptus (depending on conjugation) endings, came into English from French at an earlier stage, and after they had already been altered to fit Old French.
Because some English speakers who felt the need to use the Latin word interceptus in English, did so, creating intercept (Interception came later in a similar manner. I think so and it’s useful or appropriate to express that fact in an English words page).
The Latin word “conceive”, “deceive” and “perceive”, which have similar Latin origins in their -ipere / -eptus (depending on conjugation) endings, came into English from French at an earlier stage, and after they had already been altered to fit Old French.
Because some English speakers who felt the need to use the Latin word interceptus in English, did so, creating intercept (Interception came later in a similar manner. I think so and it’s useful or appropriate to express that fact in an English words page).
The Latin word “conceive”, “deceive” and “perceive”, which have similar Latin origins in their -ipere / -eptus (depending on conjugation) endings, came into English from French at an earlier stage, and after they had already been altered to fit Old French.
