• saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Without looking into the actual stats, it’s so incredibly common it’s normal. There are pedantic pros and cons to both; it’s trivial. But more people have a second toe shorter than the first.

            • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Sorry to rain on the parade… but ya’ll know that the prefix indicating something pertains to the foot or ankle is pod-, right?

              Podiatry. Podiatrist.

              Ped- refers to children.

              Pediatrician. Pediatrics.

                • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  So I looked into this a bit and…

                  it appears to be based on whether a word is using Latin or Greek as its etymological basis, for words pertaining to feet.

                  In Latin… it is ped-… but in Greek… it is pod-.

                  … And, you are correct, English has a mish mash of both.

                  But also, a lot of English words referring to children use the Greek derived ped- or pedo- to refer to… children.

                  …Which is why in British English, the spelling ‘paed-’ is used, to minimize this confusion.

                  But us clever Americans dropped that, rofl.