A fun look at the meaning of the prefix verb "ansprechen" and its various related words that range from being picky to eye candy.
Vocab:
ansprechen, die Ansprache, ansprechend, ansprechbar, sich angesprochen fühlen, anspruchsvoll
The core idea of the root (according to English sources) was:
ankle
German sources have the meaning for focused on motion and describe it as
twitching with the foot, unrest
In German, it shifted toward a sense of tracking (by foot) and then kept going toward the sense of perceiving.
English doesn’t have many relatives – spur, spoor, spurn.
They haven’t shifted their meaning as much, so they’re still somewhat close to ankle or to a broad sense of twitching.
