Andrew,
I apologize for not being more precise. Quality comes from the Latin
noun, qualitas, which was formed from the Latin adjective, qualis,
meaning "of what sort." Nouns of this sort came forward into English
whole, with "itas" changed to "ity." The suffix was not added to an
extant English word in this case.
The verb, concern, also comes from Latin "con" (together) + "cerno"
(see; discern), hence, "see together." The more modern meaning of
concern is, "to pertain or relate to (and a couple of others)." The
noun, concern, has the same spelling and means, "a matter that relates
to or affects one."
My point was that adding -ity (which, as I recall, we add only to nouns
or adjectives) would not yield any new meaning. Still, Americans (in
particular) being as playful with language as they are, concernity could
easily become a part of our lexicon. Our ancestors certainly considered
whether to create such a word and passed on it. But it might meet a
different fate today. If you like the word, use it. If enough people use
it, we have a new word in our language.
Did that clear up the confusion?
HTH,
--John
Andrew Peterson wrote:
>
> > However, the suffix, "ity," adds "a state or quality" to the word it is
> appended to. I don't
>
> Gosh, now I'm all confused. Assuming the above, what does "qual" then mean?
>
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