When my three-year-old asked me recently why she couldn't reach something, I said it was because she was too short, and she responded, "Mommy, you're long!" I corrected her, saying that I was tall. (At 5' 1" I'm not, really, but it's all relative.) However, it's valid to use "long" to describe her little sister, who's less than a year old and can't yet stand reliably. When she can, will we go from describing her as "26 inches long" to "26 inches tall"?
It's interesting to see what terms they use in other languages. Spanish uses bajo and alto, literally "low" and "high", while German uses klein and groß, or "small" and "large". The words for "short", corto and kurz respectively, apply only to things like pencils...and babies? I'll have to consult some experts to answer that question.
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2 comments:
Thanks for your comment, Irina. I don't speak French, so I like to hear about it from those who do. The adjective order makes a difference in Spanish, too: un gran hombre vs. un hombre grande. It might be a Romance language thing, though as far as I know there's nothing like that in the original Latin.
By "Romance language thing" I was referring to the difference in putting the adjective before/after the noun, not the difference in words for "tall". But you are right, haut is derived from altus (http://www.allwords.com/word-haughty.html) Interesting, so THAT'S where we get the word "haughty".
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