695: picture and painting Nov 2, 2016

A person who's good at using paints or words can paint a picture, and with a camera, someone can take a picture, and though one can picture an image of a picture, no one can picture something in order to create a material object. It is a bit of syntax that English doesn't have, though historically it makes sense; both 'picture' and 'paint' come from the French past participle of 'peindre', ultimately from the Latin, 'pingere' meaning 'to paint', although the creation of 'picture' was also affected by the Latin, 'pictura'. Even though the words derive from verbs, their origins as participles, which are not verbs but verbal-adjectives have influenced the way we speak.