Thinking about Things That Are "Trans-"

[MineralMan]

People seem to have forgotten that "trans" is just a prefix to other words that means basically "change something from one thing to another."

So if we make it a negative expression, we lose lots of things from our language that used to make sense. For example:

Transatlantic - Just means going from one coast of the Atlantic Ocean to the other.

Transport - Move people or cargo from one place to another.

Transformer - that's something that changes one thing into another. Like voltage. A transformer is used to change 120 volts of electricity to 12 volts to operate your HVAC thermostat.

Transitional - Something that is in the process of changing. Like a Transitional Board of Directors of a company.

Translate - Convert text in one language into another language.

Transpose - Change one thing to another to make it more understandable. We transpose music to change it from one key to another. Musicians use that all the time.

Transistor - A solid state device that modifies an electrical signal by amplifying it or acts as a switch.

Transmission - Changes the gear ratio in a vehicle to provide different speed ranges. Some cars now have as many as 8 or 10 gear ratios.

Transubstantiation - To change wine into blood, a popular belief among people of the Roman Catholic faith. It's one of the longer words with the trans- prefix

There are many other words that use the "trans-' prefix. You can find a more or less complete list of them here:

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-that-start-with-trans

I think we need to be careful how we interpret that prefix. It really doesn't stand alone in English very well. too much room for misunderstanding.