666: mercy and merchandise Oct 4, 2016

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Capitalists can be merciless, but at least products are nice. The word 'mercy' as well as the French for 'thanks', 'merci', perhaps unsurprisingly come from the same Latin word. The Latin, 'merx' however does not mean 'gratitude' or 'kindness' but instead, 'wages'. Even though some connection could be made between giving wages and giving mercy, those derivatives are less similar to the original than some of the others now used in English. More logically in terms of the original meaning, 'merchandise', 'merchant' and 'mercantile' come from 'merx' and have meanings related to finance, though even here, over time the word changed from "money received for goods" to simply, 'goods'.

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