"why" can be compared to an old Latin form qui, an ablative form, meaning how. Today "why" is used as a question word to ask the reason or purpose of something.
8 1) Please tell me why is it like that. [grammatically incorrect unless the punctuation is changed. Please tell me: Why is it like that? The question: "Why is [etc.]" is a question form in English: Why is the sky blue? Why is it that children require so much attention? Why is it [or some thing] like that?
Good explanation of why it's optional in this case, although I'm not convinced that reason is the only reasonable antecedent of why. For example, the explanation why is a common usage, and I don't think you can freely substitute that in that case either. (Perhaps it's already a contraction of the explanation of why?)
The question is: why did the English adapt the name pineapple from Spanish (which originally meant pinecone in English) while most European countries eventually adapted the name ananas, which came from the Tupi word nanas (also meaning pineapple).
Why don't these words fit the pattern of thirteen through nineteen? [Answer to 1] A remarkably thorough answer to (1) appears at Why do eleven and twelve get unique words and not end in "-teen"? .
Why the bank usage was adopted by newspapers is another question. One can only say the bank usage has become the general way of writing amount of money and currency contrary to the way we speak.
Why do people use the latter terminology? For one thing, I find it confusing. It doesn't help that BCE is similar to BC. But moreover, there is only one letter of difference between the two terms, whereas with BC and AD, the terms are clearly different and I find it easier to distinguish! Were BCE/CE established earlier than BC/AD?
5 That's a very good question. It certainly is offensive here in the US, and I'm not sure why it's considered so much worse than other "Anglo-Saxon" words. I've used all of the other ones on occasion. But in 52 years, I've used "cunt" anatomically only a handful of times, and I can't recall ever using it as a slang reference for a woman.
