2020-10-08 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด H - Helpmate & helpmeet

Revision H

2020-10-08

151220-2 –ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด H - Helpmate & helpmeet

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Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง helpmate = ‘HELP-meyt’

ออกเสียง Helpmeet = ‘HELP-meet’

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

helpmate

companion and helper; husband or wife; anything that assists

Not to be confused with:

helpmeet – a helpmate; spouse [Helpmeet was derived from a misreading in the King James Bible where God promises Adam “to make a help meet for him,” meaninga help suitable for him. As Eve became the “help,” “help meet” was interpreted as “spouse.”]

Collins English Dictionary

Helpmeet (ˈhɛlpˌmiːt)

n

a less common word for helpmate

[from the phrase an helpe meet (suitable) for him Genesis 2:18]

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Helpmate

The word meet is very common as both a noun and a verb,

but there is also an adjective meet,meaning “suitable” or “appropriate,”

as in “it seems like a meet solution.”

It is now rarely used and somewhat old-fashioned, but a famous passage in the King James Bible used this adjective:

And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.
—Genesis 2:18

Obviously, this use of help as a noun is unusual to modern ears.

More recent translations of this passage make the meaning more clear,

if less poetic: “I will make him a helper suitable for him,” but it seems that the combination of a frequently read Biblical quotation with an infrequently heard adjectival use of meet was the root of the noun helpmeet meaning either “a companion and helper” or “wife,” which came into English in the 1600s.

Several decades later, helpmate appeared as a more logical synonym,

since mate can mean either “friend” or “a member of a married couple.”

Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression

Helpmate -helpmeet

These words, of which the first is more often used, mean “a helpful companion” and usually refer to a spouse, especially a wife. In the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, God creates Eve as a “help meet” for Adam, with help meaning “someone to provide assistance” and meet meaning “suitable” “proper.” Later, help

and meet were joined by a hyphen and still later were run together as helpmeet. Because helpmate sound better and more logical to the modern ear and mind, helpmate is preferable, but helpmeet is equally correct.