How do you spell “quantity” or “quantity”? This question is repeatedly visited by people who are somehow related to writing texts. Looking into the dictionary every time is a tedious task, and it is not always there. Therefore, it makes sense to learn the spelling of this word, and at the same time to figure out why it is written this way.
Word travel story
It is necessary to make a reservation right away that of the two options: “number” or “quantity”, the second will be correct.
Our language, like people, has its ancestors. Accordingly, his words have a pedigree.
The roots of the word in question go deep into the depths of history and stretch right up to the common Slavic language. "Number" is formed from the Old Slavonic "number". The latter, in turn, came from the common Slavic pronoun "kolik" in the meaning of "what, how much." But even this ancestral tree does not stop, but takes deeper roots. The pronoun "colic" is composed of two parts:
- “To” - from the pronoun “something”,
- "Face" is an independent noun with the meaning of number, quantity.
Why is the letter "l" one
Remembering how to write correctly, “number” or “quantity”, you should not try to apply the rules of Russian spelling. This word is a dictionary, therefore, if you look for the reason for its spelling, then only in the etymological dictionary (dictionary of the history of the origin of words). Indeed, most often the spelling of morphemes when the word is transferred to another language is preserved.
Since the ancestors of the word are already known (they are discussed in this article above due to material taken from the Tsyganenko dictionary), it remains to look at the spelling of morphemes of interest to them.
So, the “li” particle inherent in the morpheme, from which the modern word derives, has one letter “l”. This becomes the rationale for writing a single "l" in the word "quantity".
Related words come to the rescue
In order to answer, as it is correct: “quantity” or “quantity”, you need to turn to the ancestors of this word. But in order to remember his spelling, there is every reason to look at his cousins.
It so happens that the same word moves to different languages and slightly modified. And it also happens that in one language, words that are completely different at first glance have the same ancestor. This happens due to the long “wandering” of words in the language, during which they undergo some changes. However, this does not affect the writing of morphemes.
Faced with difficulties in writing the word, knowing what his immediate family looks like, you can guess about his spelling. Such a simple technique applies to the word "quantity".
In Russian, the word “quantity” is derived from the same morpheme as the word “how much”. Therefore, thinking about which of the two options to choose: “number” or “quantity”, you need to remember how the word “how much” is spelled. With one "l"? Then you can safely write “quantity” with an undoubted consonant.
You can find relatives of the word "quantity" in other Slavic languages. So, for example, the Ukrainian word “lyk” (account) came from the noun “lyk”, and therefore is a cousin of the word in question.
The letter "l" turns into a bird's wedge
For people with good visual memory, this article discusses another method of remembering the spelling of vocabulary words. It is designed for visual associations.
To do this, you need to imagine a huge number of birds. They fill the whole sky with themselves, sweep over the heads of people, touching their hair with wings. They have no end and edge.
Remembering how to write “quantity” or “quantity”, it is necessary to mentally return to this image. And then imagine how countless birds gather in one single wedge (one and the consonant “l” in the word under consideration) and fly far south.
The meaning of the words "number" and "quantity"
Having figured out the spelling of the word, you need to pay attention to its meaning. In general, quantity is a property of dimensionality, it applies to everything that can be counted or measured.
And people have learned to count since ancient times. First, fingers were used for this, then they began to make nicks on sticks. With the advent of writing, people realized that it is very convenient to use letters to indicate numbers.
Over time, people began to realize numbers separately from the objects they were counting. Number has become an independent subject of thought, which lives on its own.
But if the "number" can exist without further additions, then, speaking of quantity, we mean the quantity of something. Strictly speaking, quantity is the embodiment of the function of numbers when counting objects.
For example, you can say: "Twenty-seven." And here "twenty seven" plays the role of a number, because it exists independently. But saying: "Twenty-seven birches," we mean already the quantity, that is, the number in action.
So, in order not to doubt between the "number" or "quantity", as well as the options for writing other vocabulary words with a double consonant, it is worth paying attention to the history of the origin of morphemes.
Each language has its own ancestors and heirs.