The etymological origin of the term intercalary is found in Latin. Exactly we can state that it derives from the Latin term “intercalare”, which was formed from the union of two lexical components:
-The prefix “inter-”, which means “between”.
-The verb “calare”, which is synonymous with “convene” or “publicly call”.
The notion of intercalating has different meanings according to its etymological origin. When the concept comes from the Latin word intercalāre , it refers to inserting or placing an element among others .
For example: “To prepare this dish, we must intersperse slices or slices of different cold cuts and sausages: ham, bondiola, salami, etc.” , “The producer of the radio program suggested that I intersperse humor segments between the news” , “In the concerts of his later years, the artist dedicated himself to interspersing songs from his solo stage with songs from his time in the successful band” .
Among the terms that can function as synonyms for intercalate, we can highlight intermix, insert, mix, combine, intersperse or interpolate. On the contrary, its antonyms include separating, distancing or thinning.
Suppose a person usually works three or four years without vacations or holidays (holidays) and then takes a sabbatical year, leaving aside obligations. It can be said that this subject organizes his work life in such a way that he can intersperse a prolonged period of rest between stages of intense work .
In the field of gastronomy , it is common to intersperse ingredients in a preparation. You can make a cake by interspersing layers of eggplant and meat, to name one example. In this way, the food in question presents levels of eggplant-meat-eggplant-meat and so on until the cake is complete.
In the field of medicine, the intercalary verb is also used. Thus, for example, it is common that when a patient experiences postoperative pain, the doctor tells the patient to follow a treatment in which he or she proceeds to alternate the intake of analgesics and anti-inflammatories. And it is considered that this alternation will help to better alleviate all the discomfort and consequences that this phase has after having undergone surgery. Of course, this alternation must always be made based on the doctor's criteria.
In the computer field, the term intercalary that concerns us now is also used. Specifically, there is talk of collating copies when working with the Excel program and opting to print different copies of multi-page documents. Specifically, at that moment you can tell the printer to interleave copies and thus be able to easily obtain complete groups based on the order of the pages.
Intercalar, on the other hand, may derive from intercalāris . In this context , the term refers to what is embedded or interposed .
The second that is added to ensure that the measurement of time is close to the mean solar time is called a leap second . Thanks to leap seconds, astronomy- based calendars can be kept synchronized.
A leap day , meanwhile, is the extra day that is added to February in leap years. In those cases, the month has 29 days and not 28 . A leap year, in fact, is also called an intercalary year .