Show how it started by JEAN NEWTON why I 1 it electrocute THE longest term is really linguistic shorthand this orce of this statement becomes at once manifest 1 we take as sim pie a word as electrocute and try to tell in every day language what it truly means electrocute la composed of the greek ele troa meaning amber and the latin meaning follow ing still we have the prefix electro from the fact that many of the phenomena of what we enow as electric ity were originally observed in amber so the word for amber has been sim ply adopted and adapted in our lan guage it Is a long stretch of years from ahe classic word for amber to the mod cm electrocute which means to put to death judicially by means of an electric shock but that Is how it started 1 1932 bell service |