Langaku Record: Over and Over, Dozens of Times—(2)

It is day 277 of my notes.

While reading a manga in English, I came across the following line.

English (Translation)
"Over and over. Repeatedly..."

Japanese (Original)
"Over and over, dozens of times—"

This time, I will compare repeatedly and over. Actually, these words also have very interesting etymologies. Repeat is made of re- + petere.



re-

means "

again"
or "once more
." This is the same as in rewrite, rebuild, restart, etc. On the other hand, petere in Latin meant "to seek" or "

to head toward

." In other words, it originally meant "

to head toward again


." And then, "to do again" -> "to repeat" -> became repeat. Adding the adverbial suffix -ly to that makes
repeatedly. In short, it means
over and over, iteratively. What is interesting is that repeatedly and over and over are similar but slightly different. For example, if you say "The alarm went off repeatedly," it means "The alarm went off many times." It is a bit objective


. It can also be used in newspaper articles. On the other hand, if you say "The alarm went off over and over," it means "The alarm kept going off again and again." It
has a bit more emotion. Depending on the situation, it can even convey a sense of being fed up or persistence. That is why over and over is often used when you want to convey emotion. It also appears frequently in love songs. For example, if you say "I keep thinking about you over and over," it means "I keep thinking about you again and again." It is not just a simple repetition, but has a sense of
it spinning around and around in your head


. Here, the sense of over as "going around and coming back" is also alive. Actually, over is one of the words with the most meanings in English. Above. Across. Finished. To the other side. Repeatedly. They all look unrelated, but at the root, there is an image of

crossing a boundary and going to the other side

. "Game over" is the state where the game has finished and gone to the other side. "Come over" is to cross over to this side. "Look over" is to look across the whole thing. And "over and over" is to go around and come back again. Therefore, over and over is not just a "repetition," but one feels


a movement that ends and starts again, like a wheel that keeps turning
. The "Over and over. Repeatedly..." in this manga is not simply "many times." It includes a sense of persistence and obsession, like "I did it again, and again, and again," or "I failed, but I tried again." It is a very English expression that can depict human perseverance and attachment, where even after it ends, you return to the same thing again. --Thank you for reading--

※The illustration was generated by AI: Copilot, and the text was created in collaboration between AI: Copilot and the author.