>>>>To comply with the latter meaning you would have to nail another house onto all currently 'semi-detached' ones :-}
>>>
>>>So it's not a half-truck, it's a half-done-something-to-a-truck? I'm really semi-initiated...
>>
>>I'm not real sure where it came from, but we really only refer to the truck part as being a 'semi'.
>>
>>Maybe this will help?
>>http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/77115
>
>Ah, so it's a semi-truck because it fits with a semi-trailer? But the default property is truck? I.e. if you say only semi, everyone's supposed to know you mean truck and not any of dozen other things which are also half-somethings?
>
>OK... one more for the weirdness of english. I can't think of any other language where you can say just "half" and everyone's supposed to know what you mean.

half understanding is context. LOL