I just saw the word “testerical” and though I love men dearly and am the farthest thing from anti-male, I laughed so loud my cat sprang off my stomach.
@Lena_Tasi That is just perfect and long overdue! @DavidSalo Opinion from a bona fide linguist?
It is funny. But in terms of formation, it's not exactly parallel. "Hysterical" comes from Greek ὑστερικός (husterikos) meaning "related to the ὑστέρα (hustera), the uterus." So the -er- is part of the stem there.
Testis is Latin for testicle. The Greek word for that is ὄρχις (orchis). If there were a derived adjective, it would presumably be ὀρχικός (orchikos) "ballsy," but I don't think that's attested. If it were, it would become "orchic" or "orchical" in English.
@DavidSalo @Ironworker229 So (genuine question) does that mean all words evolve following the same path, or might that depend on the time in which the word is changed and who is doing the changing, based on their own understanding or their own choice of origin word?
@DavidSalo Thank you! Appreciate the expertise. We shall see what happens...
@Lena_Tasi @Ironworker229
People can do anything they like with words. On the whole, people tend to follow existing patterns, but, even in ancient times, people diverged from those patterns when the result just felt right to them. Then the question became whether other people would adopt the new word. Words, like clothes, have fashions, and whether a new word gets accepted largely depends on whether it fits the fashion of the day. In those terms, I don't doubt "testerical" has a good chance.