tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57207113421291887032024-03-08T07:59:11.852-08:00The Wordman of AlpertonThe Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-66575018843960947432020-05-27T09:50:00.000-07:002020-05-27T09:56:20.141-07:00What happens to 6000-year-old twins when they grow up?<span style="font-size: large;">Words, words, words. So many of them. Where did they all come from? How did they all get here? Well, in this post I’ll look at three examples of how words from the same root have wandered alone through the highways and byways of history and geography, only to end up together again in English. In modern English, we have a fair number of words which come from the same ancient root. I don’t mean they all came through Old English (OE), but they started out as siblings in the womb of the same ancient language and made their ways into modern English by different routes from their roots. I’ll look at three ways that sibling words have reached modern English: through maintaining their meanings as more or less the same throughout their histories; through changing their meanings out of all recognition; and through taking different routes based on two distinct possibilities suggested by the nature of the ancient root. This post does have some linguistic terminology and examples, but only what’s necessary, and I think they’re easy enough to understand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />First of all, I’d like to give a bit of background information. English is part of the Indo-European (IE) language group, the origins of which stretch back over 6000 years. Although we can never know exactly how words were pronounced in IE, we can postulate their likely forms and pronunciations based on the words that have come down from it into ancient written languages, like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Hittite and Avestan, and also modern IE languages, which range over most of Europe and through Iran into the Indian sub-continent. Based on the recorded forms in all these languages, the likely ancient forms can be postulated, albeit with some variation and uncertainty. Postulated forms are always written with an asterisk. IE also gave rise to the Germanic language group by way of Proto-Germanic (PG) some 3000 years ago. This group is made up of West Germanic (Dutch, English, German and Frisian) and North Germanic (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and Faroese). There was also East Germanic, the most well-known of which was Gothic, the oldest written Germanic language, but the last remnants of that group finally died out over three hundred years ago. <br /><br />Now for the good part. Firstly, let’s look at two words in modern English which are probably the closest we can find to identical twins, growing up and going their own ways, but keeping pretty well the same meanings over all that time despite being sundered for so long, and then meeting up and saying: “Gosh, you look different, well, actually, not really”. IE had a form which is rendered as <i>*peḱu</i>, probably pronounced something like “peck-you”. This root had a variety of derivations, but only two interest us here: Latin <i>pecus</i> and PG <i>*feHu</i>. We can see here that the original <i>p</i> was preserved in Latin, but was changed to <i>f</i> in PG, and the original <i>ḱ</i> sound became <i>c</i> in Latin, but <i>H</i> (pronounced like <i>ch</i> in “loch”) in PG. The meaning of both these forms was “cattle, livestock” and by extension “property, money”. These associations are fairly unsurprising given that livestock has always been a basis of wealth in many societies, and the people who spoke the original IE language were almost certainly nomadic herders. The Latin <i>pecus</i> produced <i>pecū</i>, “cattle”, then <i>pecūnia</i>, “money, property”, and then <i>pecūniārius</i>, “pertaining to money”, from which we derive <i>pecuniary</i>. In the meantime, Proto-Germanic produced OE <i>feoh</i>, “money, property, cattle”. So far so good. <br /><br />However, <i>feoh</i> did not come down to us in modern English. Instead, we inherited a similar form, from another Germanic language, Frankish, which had the form <i>*fehu</i>, from which *<i>fehu-od</i> was formed, meaning “payment-estate”. The Franks, of course, settled in the Roman province of Gaul in the 3rd century and gave the country its new name – yes, the French are actually Germans, in a sense, and around 10% of French words come from Frankish. This word was also borrowed into Medieval Latin in the form of <i>feudum</i>, which gives us<i> feudal</i>. After the Norman conquest, thousands of OE words were replaced by French words, one of which was the Anglo-French <i>fee</i>, which came into Middle English with the meaning of “an estate belonging to a feudal lord”. It soon came to mean “payment for services provided”, hence our modern <i>fee</i>. Not content with borrowing it once as <i>fee</i>, English later borrowed it again from French as <i>fief</i>. It’s fascinating to think that the French word, borrowed from a Germanic language, replaced the lost OE word and kept not only the same basic meaning of the original, but also the meaning of its Latin-derived twin, <i>pecuniary</i>, after being separated for thousands of years. Just a word of warning: if you want to pay your university fees, I don’t think they accept cows any more - it's not the dung thing. <br /><br />Now I’d like to turn to the second set of words passing through Latin and OE into modern English, but with such different meanings that it’s surprising that they once had any connection at all. These are the unruly siblings that refuse to acknowledge the resemblance they once had. When they all met up again in modern English, they all asked: “Do I know you from somewhere?” The IE root probably had three forms, <i>*leis-/lois-/lis-</i>, and the meaning was something like “trace, track”. Now, the idea of tracing or tracking could lead to a number of developments, in this case three. Firstly, and most basically, tracking is something done on foot, so the idea of a path or walkway, or even tracks left in the ground, is a likely development. This also stretched to the modes of tracking, namely, the feet themselves. Secondly, tracing and tracking can lead to finding out about something, gaining knowledge. Thirdly, tracking may lead to persistence in following. Let’s look at the second development first, as it’s the most important one. The IE root gave rise to the PG verb <i>*liznōjanan</i> (PG <i>j</i> is pronounced like <i>y</i>), “follow along a track”, which eventually developed into OE <i>leornian</i>, which gives us <i>learn</i>. Another form, <i>*laizijanan</i>, developed into the modern German <i>lehren</i>, “teach”, but the related word in OE didn’t reach modern English. However, a third form, <i>*laiz</i>ō, became OE <i>lār</i>, “learning, knowledge, doctrine”, giving us modern English <i>lore</i>. Clearly, in the minds of the early Germanic peoples, tracking and tracing were good ways of gaining knowledge. I hope you’re keeping track. <br /><br />Another derivation from the IE root which came down to us via PG involves tracking and following of a different kind, not with the mind but with persistence, the third development given above. PG <i>*laistjanan</i> developed the meaning of “follow, perform, carry out” and OE inherited it as <i>lǣstan</i>, “accomplish, carry out”, with the meaning developing into “continue, endure”, which is the meaning of the modern verb <i>last</i>. The final Germanic derivation from the same IE root in modern English, albeit a highly specialised and little used one, retains the use of the foot as opposed to the track itself, as outlined in the first development given above. PG also inherited the root word <i>*laistaz</i> from IE and this became <i>lāst </i>in OE, meaning “track, footprint”. This found its way into modern English as <i>last</i>, which is a foot-shaped block used by shoemakers to model their wares. Incidentally, the most common word with this spelling, the adjective <i>last</i>, is actually a contraction of <i>latest</i>, and has nothing to do with this root. If you’ve lasted to this point, I hope you can keep on the right track. <br /><br />Now we come to the final (last?) derivation in modern English from this IE root, though this came to us courtesy of Latin, and in a rather strange way. The IE root turned up in Latin as <i>līra</i>, denoting a rather specialised type of track, namely “furrow”, as in the long, straight line produced by a plough. If a Roman ploughman couldn’t stay on a straight line, he would literally veer “off the furrow”, or <i>dē līrā</i>. This produced a verb <i>dēlīrāre</i>, “go off the furrow”, with the extended meaning of “go mad, rave”, and a noun <i>dēlīrium</i>, which modern English then borrowed as <i>delirium</i>, subsequently creating the adjective <i>delirious </i>and the medical term <i>delirium tremens</i>, which describes the effects of losing a dependency on alcohol. This also begs the question of whether Roman ploughmen were frequently drunk. I hope you can last out, though, without going delirious. <br /><br />The concluding set of examples shows how a root can separate into different strands which can still remain true to the original meaning in their own ways, while showing clear divergence and different interpretations of that original meaning, sort of identical twins going their own ways but staying true to mum in some way. IE had a root <i>*al-</i>, with the basic meaning of “grow, nourish”. This produced a variety of derivations in Latin, including these: <i>almus</i>/<i>alma</i>, “nourishing”, as in the expression <i>alma mater</i>, literally “nourishing mother”, the institution where a graduate studied; <i>adolēscere </i>(with the prefix <i>ad- </i>and the change from <i>a</i> to <i>o</i>), “grow up”, which gives us <i>adolescent </i>and <i>adult</i>; <i>alimentum</i>, “nourishment”, from which we get <i>alimentary </i>and <i>alimentation</i>; and <i>alimōnia</i>, “nourishment, sustenance”, from which we get <i>alimony</i>. The IE <i>*al-</i> root was also extended in another way, <i>*al-d-/ *al-dh-</i>, which produced two types of growing, one in Latin <i>altus </i>and a different one in PG <i>*alđáz</i>. The Latin form focused on the aspect of growing in height, while the PG form did the same for age. Hence, <i>altus </i>produced <i>altitude </i>and <i>altimeter</i>, while <i>*alđáz</i> produced OE <i>ald </i>and <i>eald</i>, which give us <i>old</i>, <i>elder </i>and <i>alderman</i>, among other words. French has also bequeathed us more derivations from Latin after <i>altus </i>became <i>haut</i>, namely <i>haute cuisine</i>, <i>oboe </i>(originally <i>haut bois</i>, “high wood”, via Italian), and <i>haughty</i>, with the spelling mistakenly changed. For good measure, we also got <i>alto </i>from Italian. I can just imagine the reactions of quarrelling teenagers 6000 years ago when their parents shouted: “I wish you lot would just grow up!” – “which way?” <br /><br />So, there we have it – three ways to get two or more words from the same root, but with widely varying results. There are a lot more of these out there as well – you just have to look for them. Or maybe I’ll bring them to you. Let me summarise this discussion in this way: for pecuniary reasons, you need to pay your fees when you learn in your alma mater, especially when you’re old enough, but don’t get haughty or you may find yourself suffering from delirium. Have fun word-hunting. </span></div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-84400727759843793972020-05-01T05:25:00.000-07:002020-05-01T05:25:33.550-07:00The Humming Bird, the Possum and the Egg Plant<span style="font-size: large;">Have you ever wondered how things get their names? What are the processes by which words are created or adapted for new ideas, objects, animals and plants, among other things? Probably, the three most common methods of naming novelties are: thinking of a new term to describe the new phenomenon; applying a known term to the new phenomenon; or, most simply, just taking a word from another language, either directly or through a long line of borrowing. I’ll explore each of these methods one by one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />I’ll start with the practice of coining a new term in your own language for a new discovery. There are various examples in various languages: French “pomme de terre”, literally “earth apple”, for “potato”; Italian “pomodoro”, literally “apple of gold” for “tomato”; and Afrikaans “aardvark”, literally “earth pig” for, well, “aardvark” (even though they’re not related to pigs at all). Here are two examples which can amply illustrate this way of naming novelties. <br /><br />When English speakers first heard about a large, spiky-headed fruit growing on a bush in South America, they referred to it as a “pine apple”. In contrast, French adopted the word “nanas” from Tupi, a language of South America, which became “ananas” and then spread around Europe and the rest of the world. The Spanish, however, while adopting “ananas” also referred to the fruit as “piña”, “pinecone”, giving us that lovely rum cocktail and silly love song, while also giving English the excuse to extend the “pine” idea by adding “apple”. English could have adopted “ananas” as well, but eventually the apple of the pine won out. Interestingly, although the Portuguese in particular were in touch with Tupi in Brazil, they made “abacaxi” the word for the pineapple as opposed to “ananas”, even though the abacaxi is only one kind of pineapple, allegedly the tastiest. <br /><br />Another American phenomenon which needed naming consisted of delightful, little, shiny, multicoloured birds, which flitted about, drinking nectar from flowers, while furiously beating their tiny wings. This is effectively a case of sound and vision (well, some of them are electric blue) – English took the sound, while Portuguese took the vision. We named them “humming birds”, which has a certain beauty to it, but the Portuguese went one step further in my opinion, naming them “beija-flor”, literally “kiss-flower”, one of the most beautifully poetic descriptions of a living being that you’ll ever come across. Most other languages have adopted the term “colibri”, which arrived from a Caribbean source via French, although French also coined “oiseau mouche”, literally “bird-fly”, a somewhat less attractive description. <br /><br />Let’s move on to the second way of naming novelties, which is to use a term that already refers to something, and apply it to something else. First, we can consider the word “possum” shortened from “opossum”, which is the name of a number of species of small marsupial omnivores originating in the Americas. In fact, the name “opossum” comes from a Powhatan word meaning “white dog-like animal”. It was assimilated into English in the 17th C and was later taken to Australia with the English settlers. There, the settlers applied the name to various marsupial species that resembled the original opossums of the Americas, albeit not closely related. It’s an interesting case of a word adopted by a dominant language on one side of the world being transported and applied to a creature on the other side. As is often the case with words, the popular name became current in Australian English and even became a term of endearment used by female impersonators. It is, however, totally unrelated to the Latin “possum”, which means “I can”. There’s a "possum" joke in there somewhere.<br /><br />My second example is that of the buffalo, or rather, the bison, in America. Zoologically speaking, there are two extant species of bison, the American and the European, which are fairly closely related but distinct. Going further back, about 10 million years, they split off from the buffalo of Asia and Africa, as well as other bovines, including cows. The word “buffalo” comes ultimately from Greek “boubalos”, “wild ox”, via Latin “bubalus” and either Spanish “búfalo" or Italian “bufalo". When American bison skins in the process of being cured were first seen by European settlers, it was assumed that they were buffalo skins. This naming became popular, and although the word “bison” (itself a Latinised version of a Germanic word) was applied to them in the late 18th C, it couldn’t dislodge the popular “buffalo” and remains rather technical in use. In any case, “Bison Bill” just doesn’t have the same ring. <br /><br />Other obvious examples include: “puma”, often referred to as “mountain lion”, even though it’s not technically a lion; “barbary ape”, even though it’s a species of macaque monkey; “koala bear”, even though it’s completely unrelated to bears; and “sago palm”, even though it’s not a palm but a cycad. All of these examples show how terms are reapplied based on appearance, which is perfectly understandable when previously unseen phenomena emerge. <br /><br />One interesting phenomenon, which is a sort of blending of the first two methods, is a term based on the place or supposed place of origin. These are quite numerous. “Peach” is derived from Greek “Persicon malon”. via Latin “Persicum malum”, Late Latin “pessica” and Old French “peche”. Originally, the Greeks though it came from Persia, although it actually originated in Northwest China, clearly passing through Persia on its way to Europe. Before paper became the standard medium for writing on, parchment was the norm. It was accepted by the Greeks that the practice of using cow leather for writing originated in the city of Pergamon in present day Turkey, so they called it “pergamenon”, which underwent a few changes to arrive at its modern form. One other example is that of lodestones. These are metallic stones which possess a magnetic charge. It’s said that they were abundant in the area of Magnesia on the Maeander on the Aegean coast of modern Turkey. The ancient Greek settlers there took the name of their area of origin, namely Magnesia in Northern Greece. The type of stone in question was called “magnes lithos” by the Greeks, which gives us “magnet”.<br /><br />Words originating from places often undergo many changes on their way to other languages. The same is true of my last group, which is, perhaps, the most widespread: words taken directly from another language along with the novel discovery, often food. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire and the site of Mexico City, they asked about a certain fruit resembling a pear which they had seen. This fruit was called “ahuacatl” in Nahuatl, the local language. As can be expected, the Spanish found it difficult to pronounce this new word, but over time it changed to become “avocado”, which sounds suspiciously like the Spanish for lawyer, “abogado”. This is a common phenomenon with borrowing words – you make them sound more like your own language, even though they’re actually completely different. One other thing is that “ahuacatl” also meant “testicle”. I’m saying nothing more, except - </span><span style="font-size: large;">enjoy your guacamole. </span><div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Another foodstuff which is probably more common than any other is sugar. The word doesn’t look very English, but that’s partly because of its journey into English from French, but let’s start at the beginning. Originally, the word didn’t denote something sweet and it wasn’t something you’d freely put in your mouth, especially if you didn’t want to crunch your teeth to pieces. Sanskrit, the ancient literary language of Northern India, used the word “sarkara”, meaning “gravel, grit”, to describe the granules of the sweet stuff produced from a certain local cane. From Sanskrit, it travelled via Persian “shakar” to Arabic, which rendered it “sukkar”. Arabic supplied it to Spanish and Portuguese with the definite article attached – hence “azúcar” and “açúcar” respectively. Medieval Latin created “succarum”, which French duly took it in as “sucre”, passing it onto English. The strange pronunciation in English results from the pronunciation of “u“ in French, rendered as “yu” in English, so “syu” became “shu”. What’s more, the French form also had an alternative with “g”, so we took that on as well. It’s enough to make you grit your teeth.<br /><br />The names of colours have all kinds of origins: “mauve” comes from the mallow plant, “vermillion” is the colour of crushed worms, “scarlet” comes from the colour of the fine Arabian cloth “siqillat” and “azure” stems from the Persian for lapis lazuli. The most interesting colour here, though, is the one from possibly the most popular fruit in the world. Sanskrit, yes, that language again, had the word “narangas”, which probably originated in a Dravidian language such as Tamil. It travelled west through Persian as “narang" into Arabic as “naranj”. It then entered Spanish as “naranja” and Portuguese as “laranja”. In French, it lost the initial “n” (alongside the change of the "a" to "o"), probably as a result of assimilating the “n” with the indefinite article “une”, so that “une norange” became “une orange”. Then English got it, firstly the fruit and later the colour “orange”. Funnily enough, the word wasn’t initially taken up by German speakers, who called the fruit “Apfelsine”, literally “Chinese apple”, though they caught up eventually.<br /><br />The last item here is probably my favourite, not in terms of the food, though I’ll happily eat it, but in terms of the massive variations to its name. It originated in Asia, or possibly Africa, and spread out to be cultivated around the Mediterranean, especially by the Arabs. Again, the name originated in a Dravidian language and is evident in the Tamil word “varutunai”. It became “vatingana” in Sanskrit, producing the Hindi word “baingan”. It travelled into Persian as “badingan” and into Arabic as “badinjan”, or “al-badinjan”, with the definite article attached. Now the fun starts.<br /><br />It arrived in Turkish as “patlican”, moving on into Bulgarian as “patladzhan” and Russian as “baklazhan”. It was adapted into Greek as “melitzana”, and then into Italian as “melanzana”, where it was altered under the influence of the Italian phrase, “mela insana”, “mad apple”. Greek also passed it on to Sicilian, Medieval Latin and French, where it ended up as “melanjan”. A fascinating upshot of this is that, in Trinidad and Tobago they use the word “melongene”, which came from French speakers when they controlled Trinidad, but later the indentured workers from India following slavery brought “baingan“ with them. <br /><br />Don’t go away – we’re not finished yet. From Arabic, it arrived in Spain as both “berenjena” and “alberenjena”, and in Portugal as “beringela”, and also “bringella”. Those great seafarers, the Portuguese, then took it out and about, back to India as “brinjal”, into Malaya as “berinjala” and over to the Caribbean as “brinjalle”, leading to the folk etymology “brown-jolly”. So, what of English? Well, as usual, we get our new words largely via French. French took the Spanish “alberengena” and turned it into “aubergine”, which looked rather like “auberge”, the French for inn. We finally got it in Britain in the 17th C. However, in America and Australia they decided to use “eggplant”, based on a white version of the aubergine which, well, looked like an egg, taking us back to the first method. <br /><br />The original word for “aubergine” is probably the mostly widely shared and modified term in history, and its story nicely illustrates how words change in pronunciation as they pass orally from one language to another, and the new speakers try to assimilate them into their speech system as well as they can. So, there we have it. Words can come from anywhere, and can travel anywhere, but that’s the fascination. We sometimes create new terms, adapt known terms or simply take on the term that comes with the novelty. You can always go out and find some more in English. They’re everywhere.</span></div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-10284788931348931032020-01-24T15:07:00.000-08:002020-01-24T15:07:15.949-08:00Koyaanisqatsi<br />
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I was going through some of my old writing and I came across this poem which I wrote back in 1987. I'm not really a poet, but I had seen a film called Koyaanisqatsi, which was made in 1982, showing how humans are gradually changing the world in ways that we can't control, and I felt the need to put pen to paper.. The title itself is a word from the native American language, Hopi, and means "a life out of balance". Given what's happening to the world today, I think it has a certain relevance. Try to see the film if you can, and remember that we've come almost forty years since it was made - and how accurate it was!<br />
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The poem is reproduced with some small changes from the original. Feel free to disseminate, but please acknowledge.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Koyaanisqatsi</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A land so parched, so drenched in sun,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fashioned by rivers where no rivers run,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Clouds roll and boil, blue foaming white,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Red screams the sky at the onset of night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hostile to humans, yet this is our home,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Living as always with death on the roam,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Countless years back, unknown years more,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Immutable, changing, the earth at our core.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Civilised, pure, destructive and wild,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Gutting earth’s past to better our child,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Scouring deep down, rising up high,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Giving our reasons without knowing why.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Koyaanisqatsi, a life out of tune,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A past slowly dying, a future too soon, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A life full of reasons, where reason is lost,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The drive to accomplish, whatever the cost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thus do we live, and must surely die,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Heedless of Demeter’s desperate cry,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Destroying not only the fruits of our pains,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The very same fruits will destroy all our gains.</span></div>
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Marc Loewenthal, Mykonos, Greece, 9 July 1987</div>
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The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-21756583840344316642019-06-01T08:18:00.001-07:002019-06-01T08:18:34.935-07:00From Tolkien to Zuckerberg – Beware what you wishes for, my Precioussss!It can safely be said that things haven’t been going exactly swimmingly for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, given the continual scandals and revelations about the way that the organisation uses its subscribers’ data and treats them as amorphous, anonymous cash cows, much as, in the eponymous film, the Matrix is shown as treating humans as sources of unlimited electrical power. How is it that, despite all Zuckerberg’s fine words about connecting people and bringing the world together, his organisation is perceived as ruthlessly and relentlessly exploiting its clientele? It seems that he is incapable of turning this perception round, no matter how hard he tries, and many think that he doesn’t really want to turn the situation round in reality. It may well be that he is impervious to the realisation of what Facebook is doing and is therefore incapable of changing. And that may well be the reason. It struck me, as an inveterate addict of all things Middle Earth, that JRR Tolkien may well have foreseen just this in one of the key aspects of the Lord of the Rings universe: it all depends on how you start out. For this, we need to examine this central theme (plot spoilers from Tolkien’s books follow). <br /><br />At the centre of all things in the world of Lord of the Rings is Sauron’s ring of power. We can pick up the story in Middle Earth in the the Second Age with Celebrimbor, the most skilful surviving elf. He forged the three elven rings, later given to Galadriel, Gandalf and Cirdan. Sauron, who could still appear in human form, learnt his ring-making skills from Celebrimbor, but when the Elven ring-maker perceived the dark lord’s evil intent, he hid the rings from Sauron, who then went to Mount Doom and forged the One Ring to Rule Them All, passing much of his evil power into his supreme creation. At the Last Battle of the Second Age, Isildur cut the ring from Sauron’s hand and claimed it for his own, refusing to cast it into the fire and destroy it, as Elrond had urged him to do. He decided to keep it for himself, but on the way back to his fortress, he was ambushed by orcs and tried to escape by swimming across a river, rendered invisible by the ring on his finger. The ring slipped off, and he was revealed to the pursuing orcs and shot. Tolkien makes it clear that he was lucky to die early in his possession of the ring, because the ring had a mind of its own and corrupted its possessor in its attempts to find its way back to its master. <br /><br />Hundreds of years later, two simple hobbit-like people, Smeagol and Deagol, are fishing on the river over the place where the ring lies. Deagol is dragged into the water by a big fish and pulled to the bottom, where he finds the ring in the mud. As he gets back into the boat, Smeagol asks him what he’s got, but Deagol won’t let him see or touch it, so they fight and Smeagol kills Deagol, stealing the ring and justifying it by the fact that it’s his birthday and the ring is his present. Of course, we know what happens to Smeagol – he becomes Gollum, living for 500 years, his life stretched out in misery by his possession of the Precious, hating and loving it at the same time. The point Tolkien makes here is that he starts his ownership of the ring with murder – a heinous act ensuring that he will never be able to shake free of the ring’s evil influence. <br /><br />Contrast this with the way Bilbo Baggins begins his possession of the ring. He finds it by chance in the caves where Gollum hides, and manages to stay invisible while Gollum is looking for him and cursing him as a thief. At one point, Bilbo stands right by Gollum, invisible to him and holding a sword, ready to strike Gollum dead and escape, but he doesn’t, because pity stays his hand, even though Gollum surely deserves death. For this reason, for starting his ownership of the ring with an act of pity, Bilbo is spared its evil influence. Although he is affected by it to a certain extent, especially through his extended lifespan, he remains essentially good, as does Frodo when he takes charge of the ring. One other key episode is when Sam thinks Frodo has been killed by the giant spider, Shelob, and takes the ring from him to continue the quest. As he is about to cross into Mordor, the ring tempts him, presenting visions of him becoming a great gardener, planting trees and flowers everywhere in Middle Earth and being celebrated by all the inhabitants of all lands as the greatest gardener ever. All he has to do is slip on the ring - but Sam resists; he’s just a simple, down-to-earth hobbit, not cut out for all this greatness. His own common sense saves him from these delusions of grandeur and inevitable betrayal to the Dark Lord. <br /><br />In this way, we can clearly see the message that Tolkien is trying to give – the way that you start your seemingly great project, in this case the possession and custodianship of the great ring of power, determines how you will continue. The intentions, desires, attitudes and mindset that you start out with will set in stone the future development of the project. If you have good intentions from the start, you will ultimately accomplish good, but if you start with bad intentions, it’s all downhill from there and there’s virtually no chance of redemption. <br /><br />All this now brings us to Facebook. First, let me make it abundantly clear that I don’t regard Mark Zuckerberg as a servant of Sauron, or even Sauron himself in disguise, let alone Gollum. I don’t believe he has a ring of power hidden away anywhere, or that he has an army of orcs ready to destroy humanity. However, I do think, with regard to initial intentions, we can validly contrast him with another famous citizen of the wired world, Tim Berners-Lee. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Tim Berners-Lee was working at CERN, the physics research installation and particle accelerator, which straddles the border of Switzerland and France. CERN was generating huge amounts of data and wanted to share the data with other researchers, but in the time before the world wide web, this wasn’t a straightforward process. Berners-Lee took an existing computer language, Standard General Mark-up Language (SGML) and repurposed it into Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) so that information could be transmitted quickly and easily by clicking on links to pages written in the language. This was effectively the start of the web in 1991. CERN initially wanted to license the technology for others to pay to use, but Berners-Lee insisted that the technology should be made freely available, thereby ensuring that the web could develop without any encumbrance into the ubiquitous network that we use today. Berners-Lee had good intentions for his technology from the start, to ensure that it would be freely available for anyone who wanted to use it and for the benefit of everyone, a principle that he has been committed to ever since. He was never seduced by the temptation, emanating from the dark side, to possess his creation. <br /><br />Let’s now turn to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Over two billion people are said to be active users of Facebook today. The company has grown to be a massive devourer of data, harvesting it and using it in ever greater proportions and methods in its incessant search for profit. Of course, this has brought onto it immense opprobrium and constant criticism, as well as the unwelcome attentions of national governments and international organisations. On the face of it, Facebook purports to be bringing the world together and promoting communication and connections between people around the globe, but many people feel that this conceals a darker and more sinister intention at its heart. And this is what beings us back to Tolkien – the intent at the initial stages of ownership; the purpose at inception, which determines the future growth and development of the project. <br /><br />At Harvard, Zuckerberg started a project called Facemash, which aimed to compare the university’s female students on screen and invite users to decide which was hotter. The Harvard authorities shut down the site as Zuckerberg had not obtained permission to use the data and the university’s systems for his project; not only that, but he had also promised fellow students, the Winklevoss brothers, that he would develop a project for them called Harvard Connection. While constantly excusing his lack of progress on their project, he instead developed the prototype for the current Facebook, launching it while effectively abandoning the brothers’ project. Later, they sued him for stealing their ideas and code, and using them to create Facebook. <br /><br />Clearly, Facebook has been embroiled in controversy from its beginnings. Court cases have come and gone, followed by controversy and criticism lasting up to the present, but still we are mesmerised by its glittering, glinting sheen and seized and held by its magnetic embrace. It has become Zuckerberg’s Precious, and also our precious. We loves it and we hates it, don’t we, Preciousssss, but it hurts, it hurts and we can’t break free. Conceived and created in obscurity, deception and controversy, its true intent of world domination concealed from the start; it twists everything. But now revealed in its naked hunger and obsession, and its blindness and wilful denial of its true nature, it will ruin us if we don’t tame it. However, it may be too late for that. If Tolkien were still alive, I feel he would have said, “I warned you, but you didn’t listen!” And now, Facebook is rising and taking over the world, with the Precious at its heart, bending all else to its will – one site to rule them all, one site to find them, one site to bring them into the data mine and bind them, in the land of Facebook, where the shadows lie…The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-65033815530502120382018-04-08T04:12:00.000-07:002018-04-08T04:13:07.109-07:00-less is often moreI was on a bus a short while ago. A couple of kids behind me were playing an old word game: Have you ever been ____<i>-less</i> (supply a word in the space)? Have you ever been <i>hairless</i>? Have you ever been <i>shirtless</i>? And so on, to much giggling and a total absence of any answers. It took me back to my childhood, the days long before youngsters had their heads buried in electronic devices, to when I made up silly games with my siblings to pass the time on journeys long and short, till we got fed up with the game, stared out of the window for a while, and then started another one. But enough of <i>pointless </i>nostalgia. <br />
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As a teacher of English, I often find myself musing on some of the vagaries of our language, asking myself unusual questions which often lead off into quixotic pursuits in the strange and arcane regions of English grammar. I fell to thinking about the suffix -<i>less</i>, used to indicate the absence of a quality stated by a noun. Often, the negative suffix -<i>less </i>is paired with a positive suffix, either -<i>y </i>or -<i>ful</i>, or in some cases both (though there are also others, such as -<i>ed</i>). For example, something which is not <i>useless </i>can be said to be <i>useful</i>. Compare also <i>thoughtless </i>and <i>thoughtful</i>, <i>hopeless </i>and <i>hopeful</i>. Equally, something which is <i>dustless </i>is not <i>dusty</i>, <i>guiltless </i>– not <i>guilty</i>, <i>luckless </i>– not <i>lucky</i>, <i>smokeless </i>– not <i>smoky</i>. The meanings may not always be used in exactly opposite ways, but the point is that the opposites exist. Some words in -<i>less </i>even have the good fortune to have two opposites: <i>cheerless </i>– <i>cheerful</i>/<i>cheery</i>; <i>fruitless </i>– <i>fruitful</i>/<i>fruity</i>; <i>tasteless </i>– <i>tasteful</i>/<i>tasty</i>. <br />
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So far, so normal. But then it occurred to me that there are some weird things that happen when you look closely at those -<i>less </i>words which don't have a ready-made opposite, or those words which do have a seemingly ready-made opposite which actually turns out not to be so. For instance, if you take the horn off a rhino, it will then be <i>hornless</i>. The question that is now manifesting itself in your head is whether a <i>hornless</i> rhino has ceased to be <i>horny</i>. Put it next to a rhino of the opposite sex and you'll soon find out. Similarly, can a <i>baseless </i>accusation be contrasted with a <i>baseful</i>, or indeed, <i>basy </i>accusation? Clearly, some -<i>less </i>words don't have a partner of the opposite persuasion, or, if they do, the partner is a rather strange one; the sort you'd soon suspect in the manner of “I Married a Monster From Outer Space”. <br />
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First of all, some, words like <i>motionless</i>, <i>motiveless </i>and <i>nameless</i>, don't have an opposite, most likely because the property in question is perceived to be present as a default position, and only noticeable in its absence. People and animals have a tendency to move a lot, so the state of being <i>motionless </i>arouses attention through its infrequency (apart, of course, from sleep). Crimes are generally assumed to have a motive, so a <i>motiveless </i>crime is significant simply because it is unusual. Similarly, someone or something that is <i>nameless </i>arouses our attention as we are so used to naming things, animals and people. When it comes to the absence of a person, we have words like <i>motherless</i>, <i>childless </i>and <i>wifeless</i>, which clearly indicate the absence of that particular person in someone's life. However, we would never think of people as being <i>motherful</i>, <i>wifeful </i>or <i>childful </i>if any of these relatives were present in their lives. I suppose that the same could be applied to <i>godless</i>, if that's an important concept for you. <br />
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When it comes to physical attributes, we have <i>toothless</i>, and its opposite, <i>toothy</i>, but not <i>toothful</i>. Manx cats are clearly <i>tailless</i>, though we would never think of tail-bearing cats as being <i>taily</i>, or even <i>tailful</i>. If you think about the absence of one's self, you could be conceived as being <i>selfless</i>, though that has a rather different meaning. However, if you're too full of yourself, you're termed as <i>selfish</i>, and not <i>selfful </i>– that could even be a new word, as could <i>selfy</i>; though, on second thoughts, maybe not. If you exist in an entirely non-corporeal form, you could be described as <i>bodiless</i>, as opposed to <i>bodiful</i>, though one thing I'd rather not contemplate in relation to the body is the idea of being <i>bottomless </i>(or indeed <i>topless</i>). <br />
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If we look at the absence of attire, we find the usual suspects such as <i>bootless </i>and <i>shirtless</i>, and even parts of attire, such as <i>zipless</i>. Clearly, if you wear boots, you aren't regarded as <i>bootful</i>, and with your shirt, you aren't <i>shirtful</i>, though if you're a punk rocker, you might be <i>zipful</i>. However, going down the other adjectival route doesn't get you very far in terms of the opposite meaning, as all you end up with is <i>booty</i>, <i>shirty </i>and <i>zippy</i>, who might have pretensions to being companions to a modern-day Snow-White. <br />
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Here are a few -<i>less </i>words which lack a good opposite; and they really got me thinking. If we aren't <i>deathless</i>, we must be <i>deathful</i>, so how come we don't die all the time? We now have <i>driverless </i>cars, but a car can't occupy the opposite state of being <i>driverful</i>, as there is no need to fill the car up with drivers. One will do, though you may have an unwanted one in the back seat. If you've been <i>jobless</i>, do you then become <i>jobful</i>, working 24 hours a day? You certainly don't want to be <i>jobby </i>(or even a <i>jobbie</i>). If your life is <i>pointless</i>, would becoming <i>pointful </i>turn you into a hedgehog? And what if you're <i>feckless</i>? Would you have any chance of becoming <i>feckful</i>, or even <i>fecky</i>, by getting more feck in your life? <br />
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I'll leave you with one final thought. We normally think of bees and wasps as having stings. However, there are certain species which don't have stings, and are hence <i>stingless</i>. What does that make a bee that never pays for its round in the pub? <i>Stingy</i>? The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-45337248213613988582017-06-15T13:23:00.000-07:002017-06-15T23:09:10.504-07:00GH: a potted history.My daughter studies at the University of Sussex in Brighton. For me, this entails periodic visits by car to ferry her back and forth to London, in particular when she has large quantities of personal effects to move. Every time I drive down the M23, which morphs into the A23 after Pease Pottage Services, a sign appears indicating the turning to Warninglid and Slaugham. Now, leaving aside deliberations on why a village in Sussex should carry a name which one would more likely expect to be seen on top of a container of hazardous material, I would like to focus on the other name, Slaugham.<br />
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Go on. Say it. Except...er...how exactly? <i>Slawm</i>? <i>Sloggam</i>? <i>Slougeham</i>? Well, like any internet user, when confronted with a conundrum which can only be solved by reference to a reliable(ish) source, I consulted Wikipedia, which duly informed me that the pronunciation was <i>Slaffam</i>. Entirely predictable in being entirely unpredictable. All over the country we have other gems: Slough, Brighton, Broughton, Middlesbrough, Edinburgh, Clougha Pike, Happisburgh (no - you'll never get it; just check Wikipedia) to name but a few, many indecipherable without local help.<br />
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Now, that got me thinking. How would anyone know how to pronounce the name of such a village if one had never heard it pronounced before? I had assumed <i>Slawm</i>, based on the name of the well-known writer of excellent short stories, W. Somerset Maugham. But no. It had to be <i>Slaffam</i>. Do we then recast the pronunciation of the writer's name as <i>Maffam</i>? Somerset <i>Maffam</i>? Doesn't quite ring true. All these ruminations focused my attention on the nature of <i>-gh-</i> itself. In short – why?<br />
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The answers are manifold. Here they are, as far as I know them.<br />
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Old English <i>-h-</i> was pronounced a bit like <i>ch </i>in German <i>achtung</i>, or Scottish <i>loch</i> and <i>Auchtermuchtie</i>. After the Norman conquest in 1066, the French-speaking scribes started rewriting these words with a <i>-gh-</i> to represent the pronunciation. As a result, we have: bight, bright, daughter, doughty, eight, fight, flight, fright, height, high, knight, light, might, naughty, neighbour, nigh, night, nought, ought, plight (troth), sight, slaughter, slight, slough, straight, taught, thigh, though, thought, through, tight, wright.<br />
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The same happened to these words, in which the <i>-h-</i> originally came from <i>-g-</i> or <i>-k-</i>: enough - OE <i>genog</i>; neigh – OE <i>neygan</i>; bough – OE <i>bog</i>; bought – OE <i>bycgan</i>/<i>boht</i>; dough – OE <i>dag</i>; drought – OE <i>drugath</i>; plough – OE <i>plog</i>; weight – OE <i>wegan</i>; wrought - OR <i>werken</i><br />
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In all the above words, the <i>-h-</i> sound disappeared over time, though the <i>-gh-</i> remained as a reminder of the old pronunciation. However, there was a small group of words where the <i>-h-</i> perfectly naturally evolved into an <i>-f-</i> pronunciation, and so we have the following: draught/draft – OE <i>dreaht</i>, laugh – OE <i>hlaehhan</i>; cough – related to OE <i>cohhettan</i>; rough – OE <i>ruh</i>; tough – OE <i>toh</i>; clough – OE <i>cloh</i>; slough - OE/ME <i>slouh</i>; trough –OE <i>trog</i>, <br />
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As if that wasn't enough, over time the scribes started seeing things which weren't there. By the time of Chaucer, Middle English had adopted thousands of words of Latin and French origin, and before long -<i>gh</i>- started poking its nose in where it was never welcome: <i>inveigh</i>, originally <i>invey</i>; <i>caught</i>, from <i>catch</i>, ultimately from Latin <i>captiare</i>; <i>delight</i>, originally related to <i>delectable</i>; <i>haughty</i>, originally from French <i>haut</i>, "high"; <i>plight </i>(bad situation), originally related to <i>plait</i>, "folded"; <i>sprightly</i>, originally from <i>sprite</i>, itself from <i>spirit</i>.<br />
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Then on top of all that, the Dutch got in on the act. When William Caxton introduced printing into England in the 15th C, he employed Dutch printers. Now, as printers were paid by the letter, certain letters were sneaked into certain words to make them longer and thereby earn more money. Added to that, the Dutch printers started messing with words in English that resembled Dutch words. As a result, we have <i>ghost</i>, from Old English <i>gast</i>, but influenced by Dutch <i>gheest</i>. In turn, <i>ghost </i>forced an <i>-h-</i> into <i>ghastly </i>and <i>aghast</i>. Later, Dutch <i>gurken </i>had a spelling change with <i>-h-</i> added in the 1800s to form <i>gherkin</i>. Other Dutch interlopers include these: <i>freight</i>/<i>fraught</i>, from Middle Dutch <i>vracht</i>/<i>vrecht</i>, and <i>sleigh</i>, altered from Dutch <i>slede</i>.<br />
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This leaves us with a few outliers from other languages. Italian uses <i>-gh-</i> to keep a hard <i>g </i>pronunciation before <i>e</i> and <i>i</i>, so we get <i>ghetto </i>and <i>spaghetti</i>. Interestingly, we also get <i>sorghum </i>from Italian despite the following <i>u</i>. Arabic has a voiced uvular sound (way down in the throat) which is rendered -<i>gh</i>- in transliteration, as in <i>Maghreb</i>, and that also gives us <i>ghoul</i>, from <i>ghul</i>, "evil spirit". Finally, Hindi and Malay refuse to be left out, Hindi with <i>dinghy</i>, from <i>dingi</i>, in 1810, and Malay with <i>gingham</i> from <i>ginggang</i>, via Dutch in 1615.<br />
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Finally, we have a strange word meaning “boastful person” with an unknown pronunciation: <i>bighead</i>, possibly pronounced <i>beeyad</i>, or <i>biff-ed</i>, or maybe even <i>beed</i>. Unless, of course, it's just a combination of <i>big </i>and <i>head</i>, in which case it's pronounced just like that. At last – a true pronunciation of the spelling of -<i>gh-</i>. I know there had to be at least one!The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-16317199812209576952017-04-16T08:30:00.000-07:002017-04-16T08:30:41.009-07:00Ode to London's Errant ApostrophesApostrophes of London! Cease your woes!<br />You come and go with highs and lows.<br />The Underground and street signs clash,<br />Resulting in an awful hash.<br /><br />It seems Kings Cross and Regents Park<br />On roads and streets, I must remark.<div>
I see Earls Court, as Barons do,<br />And no one Gardens quite like Kew.<br /><br />Ravenscourt and Park as well,<br />While Seven Sisters cast their spell.<br />Snaresbrook no challenge and hold fast,<br />Cockfosters growth that's meant to last.<br /><br />Those Theydon Bois and Shepherds Bush<br />Much as those Colliers Wood push.<br />Do Gunnersbury their hatchets deep,<br />While Kingsbury their queens and weep?<br /><br />Pray, let the fair Queen spark and sway,<br />Just as her Knightsbridge night and day.<br />So London, sort your apostrophes.<br />And use St Paul's philosophies.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">© Marc Loewenthal</span></div>
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The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-39525693794305002102017-03-09T06:59:00.001-08:002017-03-09T07:08:13.314-08:00I swear, to tell the truth. Don't we all?<i>Trigger alert: swear words present (and correct)</i><br />
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Swearing. Cursing. Foul language. Language of the gutter. Locker room talk. There must be very little in the history of language that has caused as much disagreement and controversy as the use of language labelled undesirable, uncouth, foul, obscene, profane, taboo, or any other word or phrase that you want to apply to it. Its prohibition has been inculcated into generations of youthful minds. Countless mouths have been washed out with soap because of it. Millions of lines starting “I must not swear in class...” have been written after school on its account. Incalculable embarrassment and calumny have been incurred through its use. Polite company is largely defined by its total absence. How many times have we studiously, even obsessively, had to watch our p's and q's to avoid causing offence to family, friends, acquaintances and strangers alike? <br />
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And yet, and yet, swearing is probably the most natural, normal and psychologically healthy things that we can do with our language. I would go as far as to say we need to swear to express our feelings about someone or something. We gain a release. We show exactly what we think and feel. We identify ourselves with others through it. It becomes a badge of honour. We learn when its use is acceptable and when it isn't. We effectively become proficient users of swearing, because it's an integral part of our language and our linguistic repertoire. I would even venture to say that without swearing, we are not fully fledged users of our language. This is not just my opinion; swearing is actually part of the structure of our language.<br />
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First, let me explain why swearing is the topic of this blog post. Recently, the local council in the English town of Rochdale, near Manchester, decided to ban swearing by using a “public spaces protection order” to warn, or even fine to the tune of £100, anyone using “foul and abusive language”. You can read the report <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/08/rochdale-council-plans-to-ban-swearing" target="_blank">here</a>. While I understand that consistently using foul and abusive language to the extent that people in the vicinity feel threatened and intimidated is undesirable, there doesn't seem to be any concise definition of what constitutes foul and abusive language and to what extent it needs to be used to require sanction. However, the aspect of this matter which intrigues me is the idea that an integral part of our language can and should be banned.<br />
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Swearing, far from being an undesirable and iniquitous use of language, is actually an aspect of our grammar. If you want to ban swearing, you might as well campaign to ban the use of object pronouns, modal verbs, superlatives, or even the past perfect continuous. If you open up a grammar book, you will see examples and explanations of the grammar that we use on a daily basis, the grammar which makes our language the English language. Now, you might think that postulating swearing as a grammatical category of the language on the same level as, say, phrasal verbs is going more than slightly beyond the pale. However, there is ample evidence for this, which I present here.<br />
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We have adjectives, adverbs and nouns, which we can use in increasingly lengthy strings to give more detailed descriptions, as in these examples:<br />
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a book; a good book; a really good book<br />
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a house; a large house; a large, wooden house; a beautiful, large, wooden house; an amazingly beautiful, large, wooden house.<br />
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We use adverbs to modify our impression of something, to add positive or negative feelings or attitudes to expressions, or to enhance certain aspects of the thing, person or idea that we are describing. And we use swear words in a similar way. However, what makes swear words a separate category from all other modifiers in the English language is how we use them to modify. In short, swear words are the only words in our language that can grammatically split other words. Here are some examples:<br />
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abso-bloody-lutely; un-fucking-believable; fan-bleeding-tastic; the under-poxy-ground<br />
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We usually use these words to emphasise something, stress disapproval and express annoyance. Their use adds emotion to what we're saying in such a way that other words can't. We can also use swear words in other ways without splitting words. The significant thing is that other words which are not normally regarded as taboo, cannot perform the same function. Have a look at these:<br />
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no fucking way; I don't bloody believe it; a piss-poor game; I should sodding-well think so.<br />
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There are many more examples if you care to look for them, or even think of them (if you aren't afraid of sullying your mind). Of course, you can go through your life without using swear words, just as you can go through your life without ever using the passive, or relative clauses. It would be quite difficult to avoid doing so, though. The point that I'm making is that swear words form a grammatical category in our language, and attempting to ban their use in natural language expression is both unjustifiable and futile. Certainly, we as speakers should be able to judge when to use them and we shouldn't be sanctioned for the odd use of a choice word. I think that if local authorities want to regulate the behaviour of certain people in public, they would do better to focus on what they do, rather than try to deny them the right to use the full range of language that we have at our disposal.<br />
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If you would like to read a more comprehensive description of taboo words, read the taboo section in Michael Swan's <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-English-Usage-Paper-Back/dp/0194202437/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1489069986&sr=8-2&keywords=practical+english+usage" target="_blank">Practical English Usage</a>, a must for anyone keen to know how the English language really works.The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-46458931163985236862017-02-19T08:06:00.001-08:002017-02-19T08:06:38.223-08:00You can't handle the truth!One of the most fascinating aspects of the human condition is the way in which we deal with truth and untruth, reality and fantasy, fact and fiction. We can use fantasy and fiction to imagine other worlds and other “realities”, as well as to test ideas and hypotheses. The problems come when we knowingly use fiction to replace fact, and then try to present that fiction to the world as reality.<br />
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A good example of this was revealed last week by the Trump administration. Now, this blog is not necessarily the place to launch a political attack on Trump and his team, as, among other things, there are people far better equipped at doing that then I am. I will, however, take issue with the language that any politician uses to obfuscate the truth. I have no problem in calling out lies when I see language being used to pretend that they are anything but lies. <br />
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On 14th February Mike Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, resigned after it emerged that he had misled VP Mike Pence over his previous contacts with Russian officials. The exact words he used for his misdemeanour were “inadvertently briefed” and “incomplete information”. Now, let's analyse this. He briefed him. OK. That's his job, so I can accept that he opened his mouth and produced words designed to help Pence make a decision or come to a conclusion of some kind. Except that he wasn't briefing in this case – he was responding to a specific question as to whether he had discussed with Russian officials the prospect of raising sanctions imposed on Russia. What was required was a yes/no answer. There was no briefing required here. <br />
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Let's now examine “inadvertently”. Dictionary.com defines “inadvertent” as “unintentional, heedless”. Thesaurus.com gives these synonyms (among others): careless, reckless, unintended, unwitting, chance, not on purpose, unpremeditated. So Flynn is saying that the “incomplete information” that he transmitted to Pence in their exchange on this matter somehow emanated from his mouth in an entirely unplanned, unintended and unpremeditated manner. In some way, words expressing that he did not discuss state matters with foreign officials somehow formulated themselves in his mind in an entirely unplanned way, and escaped from his mouth with no intention at all. And he is in one of the highest advisory positions in the administration of the most powerful country in the world. In other words, as far as he is concerned, he didn't lie, as that would have involved premeditation, intention and clear denial of a manifest truth of which he was certainly aware as he had actually held the talks with the Russians.<br />
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Of course, Flynn isn't the only politician to engage in this type of wordplay in an attempt to save their bacon. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have confessed that they “misspoke” - Trump when referring to abortion and Clinton when referring to her trip to Bosnia. In fact, “misspeak” has a history stretching back to Old English, though it mostly meant “murmur”, “grumble”, “speak disrespectfully” and “pronounce incorrectly”. However, more recently, especially under the influence of politics in America, it has come to mean increasingly “avoid telling the truth” under the guise of not saying what you intended to say. Another expression for lying, “economical with the truth”, entered political discourse during a 1986 trial over a book, Spycatcher, which the British government was trying to stop from being published in the UK. Alan Clark, a minister in Margaret Thatcher's government, admitted to being “economical with the actualitè” in Parliament, which stretches the denial of lying even more. Careful research will no doubt produce numerous other examples of alternative expressions for telling lies.<br />
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Don't get me wrong. Humans throughout history have obfuscated, denied and dissembled for a variety of reasons. We use euphemisms and other expressions to avoid mentioning the real name of something. The ancient Greeks believed that there existed infernal goddesses known as the Furies, who punished people for breaking their oaths. However, they usually referred to them as the Eumenides, a euphemism which meant “kindly ones”, for fear of arousing their wrath by calling them by their real names. The Black Sea was stormy and difficult to navigate in the ancient world, so the Greeks called it Pontos Euxeinos, literally “hospitable sea”, to avoid incurring its wrath. Some seemingly innocuous words and expressions are even taboo. The Russian for bear, medved, literally “honey eater”, is thought to have been used to avoid uttering the real name of the animal, which has always been a powerful figure in Russian folklore. “The Scottish play” is used to avoid uttering “Macbeth”, “pass on” is used to avoid “die”, and so on. However, in most of these cases the aim is usually to avoid hurting feelings, insulting people, provoking conflict or raising a contentious subject. These ways of speaking are part of our human nature.<br />
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Let's be clear, though. When it comes to politicians, who we entrust with our votes to govern our countries, societies and lives for our good, we have every right to expect them to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and not conceal it for their own benefit. Politicians use expressions such as “inadvertently advise”, “misspeak oneself” and “be economical with the truth” to deliberately lie. If something is a matter of state secrecy and security, then fine - we can all accept that. Just say so. We're not children to protect from the awful truth. If they want our trust, they should just come out with the truth when there is no alternative. We can handle it. They can't.<br />
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The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-24674629091563364702016-12-01T07:12:00.001-08:002016-12-01T07:12:05.579-08:00Talk of the town, but which one?A funny thing happened to me yesterday as I was making my way to Horsham from London on a Southern rail service. Now, all railway companies screw up with their services from time to time, and they occasionally have the good grace to inform their passengers of delays and cancellations. On my train, they even repeatedly put out helpful suggestions to make sure the passengers were on the right part of the train, as the front four coaches were continuing to Portsmouth after Horsham, while the rear four were off to Bognor. I mean, you wouldn't want to have Portsmouth as your intended destination, only to pull up in Bognor, uttering "Bognor? Bugger!" in surprise and disbelief at your folly.<br />
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However, I would have thought they would draw the line at the summary renaming of random stations as you approach them. I mean, this could prove quite confusing, even disconcerting, if you were to be expecting to arrive in, say, Brighton, only to be informed that it had been renamed Invercargill or Happisburgh or something. However, this is precisely what happened on my train, not once, but twice, though I must emphasise that it did not affect me personally, as the station in question was simply one I was passing through. What's more, the replacement name was not one which, to my knowledge, identifies any genuine geographical location in this country or, indeed, anywhere else in the known universe, which makes it all the more perplexing. Still, I can do no more than give you the facts and allow you, Dear Reader, to supply your own explanation for it.<br />
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The station in question is Crawley, though anyone with less than a passing acquaintance with the vicinity of Gatwick Airport may well not have been able to deduce that, given the nature of the announcements. As we left the station before Crawley, the announcer proclaimed to all and sundry: "The next station is Wouldcustomerspleasenote." A quick search on Google maps failed to turn up a settlement, large or small, of that name in the area. However, a few minutes later the next announcement seemed to have obliterated the newborn Wouldcustomerspleasenote from the face of the earth and replaced it with yet another ostensibly non-existent settlement with the same coordinates as Crawley: "We are now approaching Pleasemindthegapbetweentheplatformandthetrain." Another search failed to identify this newest of new towns in the locality, given that a few minutes previously it had been known as Wouldcustomerspleasenote. Perhaps they had reviewed the initial renaming of Crawley as a singularly inadequate attempt to truly place it on the world stage and wanted to endow it with a name to rival Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales or even Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu in New Zealand. However, I think you might agree that these attempts both fall a bit short. <br />
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Well, that's my interpretation, for what it's worth. I look forward to any other simpler, more likely explanations, should you wish to supply them. Oh, and by the way, on my arrival in Crawley Station, I noticed that it still had signs for Crawley, so evidently they had not had the time to engage signwriters to amend them. If I were you though, I'd be on my guard the next time you want to travel there by train. You never know.The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-37183510248438759272016-10-13T18:41:00.000-07:002016-10-13T18:41:31.367-07:00950 years ago today - the battle that changed our language foreverSo here we are, exactly 950 years since the English language started to undergo probably its most radical change in history – the loss of its status as a national language and its transformation from an almost exclusively Germanic language into a Latinised Germanic mongrel. Vast swathes of its original vocabulary were supplanted by words from Old North French and standard Old French, with the result that some 60% of the vocabulary of our language comes either from French or from Latin, often via French. However, it's not just the vocabulary that has left a mark on our mother tongue; there have been other influences, and in commemoration of the momentous events of 950 years ago in the Battle of Hastings, I have outlined the main ones in this post. I hope you enjoy and appreciate them. <br /><br /><u>Basic vocabulary</u><br /><br />First, let's look at some basic vocabulary changes. Among the myriad words that have arrived from French, many have ensconced themselves firmly within everyday English. Here is a selection just to give you a taste:<br /><br />Old English didn't have a special word for what follows <i>first</i>, instead using <i>other</i>, so it borrowed <i>second</i> from Old French. It comes ultimately from Latin <i>secundus</i> and literally means “following”. Related words include <i>sequence</i>, <i>suit</i> and <i>suite</i>.<br /><br />By Chaucer's time, Middle English had adopted <i>because</i>, which is a combination of English <i>by</i> and French <i>cause</i>, which in turn comes from Latin <i>causa</i>, “reason, matter”.<br /><br />In modern English slang, a <i>guv'nor</i>, or <i>guv</i>, from <i>governor</i>, means “boss, sir, mate”. It comes ultimately from Greek <i>kybernein</i>, “steer”, via Latin <i>gubernare</i>, which produced <i>gubernator</i>, “ruler, director”, which French handed over as <i>governor</i>.<br /><br />Every day we use good old English terms like “I hope so, I think so, I guess so”. To that we added “I <i>suppose</i> so”, or, as it's generally pronounced “<i>s'pose</i> so”. The Middle English <i>supposen</i>, “have an opinion, assume”, comes from Old French <i>supposer</i> and ultimately from Latin.<br /><br />Old English used the word <i>sore</i> as an intensifier, much as Modern German uses <i>sehr</i>. <i>Sore</i> continues in its original meaning of “painful”, while <i>sorely</i> is old-fashioned but clearly an intensifier. However, Middle English went to Old French to borrow <i>verai</i>, from Latin <i>verax</i>, “truthful”, and turned it into <i>very</i>. <br /><br />There are hundreds more everyday words like these which owe their existence to the Norman Conquest, including these, which you might like to follow up yourselves: <i>chief, defeat, dress, eagle, fashion, grief, injury, judge, leisure, prison, push, quiet, reason, rest, royal, search, tax, trouble </i>and<i> uncle.</i><br /><br /><u>Names</u><br /><br />It is well-known that Old English names were largely unpronounceable (at least to us). Who can forget the names from the spoof school history book, 1066 And All That: Ethelbreth, Athelthrall and Thruthelthrolth? OK, so the writers were going slightly over the top, but we still have <i>Alfred, Audrey, Cedric, Earl, Edith, Edmund, Ethel, Harold, Oswald, Wilfred</i> and <i>Winifred</i>, to name but a few. However, the Normans brought over a huge swathe of new names for us to choose from, including <i>Alice, Charles, Clement, Felicity, Gerald, Geoffrey, Henry, Janine, Lucy, Marjorie, Matilda, Nancy, Richard, Robert</i> and, of course, <i>William</i>. What's particularly interesting is that many of these names originally come from German, since the Germanic Franks, who gave their name to France when they settled there, supplied many of them. Just look at modern German <i>Heinrich</i> (Henry) and <i>Wilhelm</i> (William). <br /><br />The Normans were also past masters at supplying us with surnames, most notably those connected with professions. Hence we have the person who makes bows, <i>Archer</i>, the person who chops up your meat, <i>Butcher</i>, the person who makes arrows, <i>Fletcher</i>, as well as the person who cuts the cloth for your clothes, <i>Taylor</i> and <i>Turner</i>, the person who, well, turns. One very interesting aspect of Norman names comes from their occupation of Ireland. All over the world people traditionally take their name from their parents. In English we have a large number of names ending in -<i>son</i>: <i>Johnson, Williamson, Peterson, Harrison</i> to name but a few. The same was true of the Norman French in Ireland. The French word for "son", <i>fils</i>, was prefixed to the father's name and was eventually rendered as <i>fitz</i>, hence: <i>Fitzgerald, Fitzmorris, Fitzpatrick, Fitzsimmons and Fitzwilliam</i>.<br /><br />When we look at place names, we can see some that the Normans changed from previous names and a few new ones. They are usually names which mix the original English name with the name of the Norman Lord who took over the town or the area. Hence we have <i>Ashby de-laZouch, Stoke Mandeville, Theydon Bois, Beauchamp, Beaulieu</i> and <i>Richmond</i>.<br /><br /><u>Food</u><br /><br />I've written about this already (see 21/4/16), but a few short words won't go amiss here. When the Normans took over and invited more of their countrymen into the conquered land, they only numbered about 10% of the population, but the top 10%. For anyone old enough to remember bottled milk being delivered to your door every morning, you could compare the social structure of England to the contents of a milk bottle – the Norman French <i>cream</i> on top of the Old English <i>milk</i>, accurately reflecting the provenance of these two words. <br /><br />The same ran through society, most clearly exemplified by words for animals on the English farm and in the forest, and the meat served up on the Norman table: English <i>pig</i>/<i>swine</i> and French <i>pork</i>; English <i>bull</i> and French <i>beef</i>; English <i>cow</i> and French <i>veal</i>; English <i>sheep</i> and French <i>mutton</i>; English <i>deer</i> and French <i>venison</i>. This last one is especially interesting, as <i>venison</i> actually comes from the Latin <i>venari</i>, meaning “hunt”, while <i>deer</i> originally had the meaning of “animal”. Only the king and his nobles were allowed to hunt deer (transgressors did so under pain of death), so <i>venison</i>, literally “hunted meat” was highly prized. There are many other examples of French food from my previous blog post.<br /><br /><u>Doublets</u><br /><br />Although many Old English words were lost in the face of new vocabulary from Old French, many words which came in with the conquerors happily settled into English and still exist alongside their older neighbours to this day. The differences in meaning and use are often subtle, and you can see for yourself how each doublet plays out. The situation is, in fact, further complicated by borrowings directly from Latin (often through Old French), with the result that we often have triplets! These examples will serve to illustrate the point:<br /><br />English <i>folk</i> and French <i>people</i>; English <i>stool</i> and French <i>chair</i> (see how the stool is a diminished type of chair); English <i>brotherhood</i> and French <i>fraternity</i>; English <i>kind</i> and French <i>gentle</i>; English <i>some</i> and French <i>several</i>; English <i>smell</i> and French <i>odour</i>; English <i>loss</i> and French <i>defeat</i>;<br /><br />English <i>kingly</i>, French <i>royal</i> and Latin <i>regal</i>; English <i>twofold</i>, French <i>double</i> and Latin <i>duplicate</i>; English <i>guts</i>, French <i>bravery</i> and Latin <i>valour</i>; English <i>end</i>, French <i>finish</i> and Latin <i>terminate</i>; English <i>tell</i> (cf bank teller), French <i>count</i> and Latin <i>compute</i>.<br /><br />Throughout its history, French has rendered its Latin roots almost unrecognisable in some cases. Even those words which still bear a resemblance to Latin have undergone some major changes. Another development from the introduction of French into English has been a greater receptiveness to borrowing directly from Latin, or from Latin via Old French. As a result, we have numerous doublets from the two languages, essentially the same word in two forms: French <i>sure</i> and Latin <i>secure</i>; French <i>poignant</i> and Latin <i>pungent</i>; French <i>chieftain</i> and Latin <i>captain</i>; French <i>count</i> and Latin <i>compute</i>; French <i>search</i> and Latin <i>circulate</i>; French <i>grief</i> and Latin <i>gravity</i>; French <i>frail</i> and Latin <i>fragile</i>.<br /><br />French has even given English doublets from different dialects of French. The Normans spoke a form called Old North French, which became Anglo-French after they settled down. However, many other Old French speakers arrived from other parts of France, mostly speaking standard Old French. Typically, Old North French had initial <i>c-</i> and <i>w- </i>where standard Old French had <i>ch</i>- and <i>gu-</i>, hence: <i>carry</i> and <i>charge</i>, both from Latin <i>carricare</i>, “transport, load”; <i>catch</i> and <i>chase</i>, from Latin <i>captiare</i>, “take, seize”, hence “hunt, try to take”; <i>cattle</i> and <i>chattel</i>, from Latin <i>capitale</i>, “property”; <i>warranty</i> and <i>guarantee</i>, from Frankish <i>warand</i>, “authorisation”; <i>warden</i> and <i>guardian</i>, from Frankish <i>wardon</i>, “watch”.<br /><br /><u>Meaning change</u><br /><br />One of the things we have to remember about the words we've inherited from French is that we've changed the meanings quite a lot. Here are a few differences we shouldn’t forget when we venture to the other side of the Channel. In France, it's perfectly normal to <i>demand</i> things, as it simply means “ask” in French. If someone tells you they're <i>désolé</i>, they're simply sorry, not <i>desolate</i>. And never ask a man if he's <i>embarrassé</i> – men can't get pregnant, at least not yet. Also don't worry if your hotel maid <i>deranges</i> you. She'll just say sorry for disturbing you and come back later. It may not be <i>sensible</i> to fall in love in England, but it certainly is in France as being <i>sensible</i> involves the heart, not the head.<br /><br /><u>Pronunciation</u><br /><br />Perhaps one of the most radical effects of French on English has been pronunciation. It's long been a running joke about how the French and the English can't pronounce each other's language properly, and there's some truth to that. English loves to weaken and chop syllables in speech even more than French does. Also, English is a stress-timed language, which means you only hear the stressed syllables clearly, with unstressed syllables swallowed up in between, while French is syllable-timed, which means that no one syllable is heavily stressed, thereby reducing the force of others. What’s more, English likes to stress the first syllable as far as possible, while French prefers the last. <br /><br />Suffice it to say that there have been numerous changes in the way words of French origin in English are pronounced. Have a look at these borrowings from French, and find out how the related words are pronounced in French, Spanish and Italian:<i> Asia, azure, leisure, pleasure, pressure, temperature, furniture, comfortable, suit, suite, precious, fusion</i>.<br /><br /><u>Spelling</u><br /><br />Last but not least, we come to spelling. By the time the Normans arrived, Old English was a fully-fledged literary language, with its own spelling rules. The Normans had to write texts in English for the general population to read, but the scribes preferred to use French as the basis, thereby introducing letters such as <i>q</i> and rewriting exclusively English letters and combinations of letters in their own way. Here are a few choice examples: <i>cwic</i> became <i>quick</i>; <i>scip</i> became <i>ship</i>; <i>bricg</i> became <i>bridge</i>; <i>ðæt</i> became <i>that</i>; <i>hwæt</i> became <i>what</i>; <i>heofon</i> became <i>heaven</i>; <i>cese</i> became <i>cheese</i>.<br /><br /><u>Epilogue</u><br /><br />So, I hope you've enjoyed my short account of the changes that the Normans brought to our language. We can still see many of them in action today, 950 years since they began. I would imagine they will continue for many years hence. If you're still around in fifty years' time, then I hope you can dig this out again, wherever it may be, celebrate the full thousand years, and remember that relatively small events in one place at one time can have massive consequences, not least the wholesale restructuring of so much of a language. The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-8896263837355873302016-08-03T05:28:00.000-07:002016-08-03T05:28:09.735-07:00More from the Normans: legal pagans and loyal peasants<div class="western">
<div class="western">
This entry continues the theme of doublets – two
words coming into English from the same Latin root, but with one of
them radically changed in form and sometimes meaning by its passage
through Old French and Norman French before nestling in the bosom of
Middle English, and the other coming more directly from Latin, while
preserving most of the original form and meaning. Basically, we're
talking two, and occasionally three, for the price of one. It just
goes to show how generous the Normans were with their vocabulary.</div>
<div class="western">
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<div class="western">
So, let's start with <i>loyal</i> and <i>legal</i>, for they
are, indeed, essentially the same thing. Both these words come from
Latin <i>lex</i>, “law”, and clearly, <i>legal</i>, arriving in the first half
of the 15<sup>th</sup> C as a learned borrowing from Latin <i>legalis</i>
via Middle French, carries the original meaning with it. Strangely
enough, <i>loyal</i>, “faithful”, arrived almost a hundred years later
directly from Middle French, having been rendered <i>loial</i>/<i>leial</i> in Old
French from the original Latin form. However, Middle English had
earlier borrowed <i>leal</i>, “faithful” from Old French and rendered it
<i>lel</i>, and this form was supplanted by the later borrowing of <i>loyal</i>.
The change of meaning in <i>loyal</i> was to do with the idea of carrying
out legal requirements faithfully.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
Moving on
to <i>pagans</i> and <i>peasants</i>, these words share the same origins, at least
linguistically, if not materially. In Roman times, a district in the
country was delineated by fixed markers, which is why it was known as
a <i>pagus</i>, literally a “fixed area”. From <i>pagus</i> came <i>pagensis</i>,
“inhabitant of a country district”. In Vulgar Latin, <i>pagensis</i>
came to refer to the territory that the district covered, becoming
<i>pa<span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;">ï</span>s</i> in Old French as
well as in Spanish and Portuguese, and producing the modern word for
“country” in all three languages. Old French also produced
<i>pa<span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;">ï</span>sant</i>,
“country-dweller”, which came to us via Anglo-French <i>paisant</i> as
<i>peasant</i> in the early 15<sup>th</sup> C. While <i>peasant</i> was busily
divesting itself of its similarity to its distant ancestor, Late
Latin <i>paganus</i>, “villager”, remained the same until it came
directly into English, also in the early 15<sup>th</sup> C, but with
the meaning of “heathen”.</div>
<div class="western">
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<div class="western">
So, why were some country-dwellers simply rustic
types while others became non-believers? There are two possible
reasons. When Christianity was adopted by the Roman empire, people
living in country areas were less likely to take on the new
religion than city dwellers, holding on to their old ways and gods, and
therefore being seen as pagans. An alternative explanation is that
country-dwellers were not seen as Soldiers of Christ, as the early
Christians termed themselves, and were more likely to be termed
non-believers. So a non-believer chewing a stalk of wheat while
sitting on a farm gate could truly be called a pagan peasant.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
Just as we have loyal and legal, we also have
<i>royal</i> and <i>regal</i>. The Latin <i>rex</i>, “king”, produced <i>regalis</i>,
“kingly”, which became <i>roial</i>, “royal, splendid”, in Old
French. This was borrowed in the 13<sup>th</sup> C as <i>royal</i>, with the
meaning of “fit for a king”. A century later, <i>regal</i> was borrowed
from Latin via Old French. It's interesting that when the dust
settled, we ended up with three words meaning pretty much the same
thing – kingly (the original Old English root word), <i>royal</i> and
<i>regal</i>, though <i>royal</i> has come to denote the nature of the monarch,
while kingly and <i>regal</i> refer rather to appearance.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
One thing that might happen to people if they
crossed the monarch in the old days was imprisonment, which brings us
to the next group – <i>jail</i>, <i>cage</i> and <i>cave</i>. Yes, I know they don't
look very similar, but we can still see the links in the meanings.
All three words came into Middle English in the 13<sup>th</sup> C.
The Latin root was <i>cavus</i>, “hollow, hole”, which produced Old
French <i>cave</i>, “cave, vault, cellar”, coming to us with more or
less the same meaning. The other two words were fed through the
French machine much more thoroughly. The Latin form <i>cavea</i>, “hollow
area, animal enclosure, coop”, became <i>cage</i> in Old French, which it
remained as it was handed over to Middle English with the meaning of
“prison, retreat”. The form <i>cavea</i> also produced a diminutive form
<i>caveola</i> in Late Latin, also with the meaning of “enclosure, coop”.
This became <i>gaviola</i> in Vulgar Latin and then <i>jaiole</i> in Old French.
The alternative form <i>gaiole</i> was used in Old North French, and both
forms came into Middle English via Anglo-French, giving us both <i>jail</i>
and <i>gaol</i>. So, one could say that the Birdman of Alcatraz had <i>cages</i> in
his <i>jail</i> or <i>jails </i>in his <i>cage</i>. And if a caveman transgressed, was he
kept in a <i>cave</i> or in a special <i>cave-jail</i>?</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
The last entries in this post might well get you a
long time in jail if you're not careful – <i>poison</i> and <i>potion</i>. One of
the Latin words for “drink” was <i>potare</i>, which gives us <i>potable</i>.
However, in medieval times, people seemed to be playing around with
all manner of mysterious and magical drinks. <i>Potion</i> came into Middle
English directly from Latin <i>potio, </i>"drink, drinking"<i>,</i>via Old French, replacing an earlier
borrowing, with the meaning of “medicinal drink, magic drink,
poisonous draught”. Nowadays, we think of it as more of a magic
drink liable to turn you into a frog in a fairy story. While <i>potion</i>
was largely unchanged by its passage through French from Latin <i>potio</i>,
<i>poison</i> most certainly was not. It came into Middle English slightly
earlier than <i>potion</i> from the Old French <i>poison</i>/<i>puison</i>, with the
meaning of “deadly potion”. Clearly, it wouldn't have done to
visit a medieval hostelry and ask someone “what's your <i>poison</i>?”
You'd never know what you'd get.</div>
</div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-25019162472154200942016-07-17T13:55:00.001-07:002016-07-17T13:55:18.645-07:00What's the point?<div class="western">
Have you ever reached a juncture in your life
where you just sit and think “What's the <i>point</i>?” Well, here
I am to tell you what the <i>point </i>is, as well as the <i>puncture</i>, the
<i>pounce</i>, the <i>punch </i>and much more besides. Plenty of Latin roots have
passed on their offspring to us to enrich our language, but few have
been as fecund as <i>pungere </i>(pronounced
rather like poon-gay-ray),
which has provided English with a whole family of words, the most
important of which came via the Normans. You
could say that the Normans have poked, pricked and stabbed us
repeatedly with <i>pungere </i>since they first held
us at the <i>point </i>of a
sword at Hastings.
</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
<i>Pungere </i>in Latin
indeed meant
“pierce, stab, prick”, basically the action of a sharp object
making a hole. This produced <i>punctum</i>, “pierced,
pricked”, which gave French
<i>point</i>, “dot, mark, place”,
and <i>pointe</i>, “sharp end”. When these came into Middle English from
Old French in the 12<sup>th</sup>
C, the two words fused and
over time took on the numerous meanings the word <i>point</i> has today,
including sharp end, full stop, dot, position, stage, important
feature, mark, score, indicate, aim and direct, to name a few. I
think you'll take my <i>point</i>.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
Two words come to
us from Old French <i>ponchon</i>, “piercing tool”, itself from a Latin
form <i>punctio</i>, with the same
meaning. This produced <i>puncheon </i>in Middle English, which was reduced
to <i>punch</i>, a word
we still use in expressions like hole <i>punch</i>. The verb <i>punch</i>, “make
a hole” came from the Old French <i>ponchonner</i>, and was also used to
mean “thrust, prod, poke”, later being extended to “hit with
the fist”. Coincidentally, the Latin <i>pugnare</i>, which gave us
<i>pugnacious, </i>is related to <i>pungere</i>, and meant “fight with fists”,
so the later development of <i>punch </i>into fist-fighting is parallel to
the earlier Latin use of <i>pugnare</i>. Incidentally, the drink <i>punch </i>is
unlikely to have any connection with poking, thrusting or <i>punching</i>,
but is said to be from the Hindi word for five, denoting
the original number of ingredients. However, after a few glasses of
<i>punch</i>, I'm sure a few other
<i>punches</i>
might ensue in the wrong circumstances.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
An alternative
meaning of
Old French <i>ponchon
</i>was “lance, javelin,
spine”, and this produced Middle English <i>pownse</i>, which came to
refer to the claws of a bird of prey. Even today in falconry, the
front claws of a falcon are known as <i>pounces </i>because they
pierce the body of the prey. However, over time, the action of the
hunter in swooping on the prey changed the meaning of <i>pounce </i>from "pierce"
to "seize
with claws" and finally
to "jump on", which is the meaning we use now.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
A later borrowing
in the 14<sup>th</sup>
C from Middle French into Middle English was <i>poignant</i>, “stinging”,
from the verb <i>poindre</i>,
“prick, sting”. Originally, <i>poignant </i>referred to both physical
and mental stinging and pain, especially sharp tastes, but over time
it became reserved for feelings and other abstract ideas.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
All of the above
words were mediated by their passage through Old and Middle French
before they reached Middle English, but words were constantly
borrowed directly from Latin as well, which gives us some interesting
parallel derivations alongside the French ones. Two such words,
<i>punctual </i>from <i>punctualis</i>, "on point", and <i>puncture</i>, from <i>punctura</i>, "pricking", arrived in the 14<sup>th</sup>
C direct from Medieval Latin.
Being on <i>point </i>has become associated with time, hence <i>punctual</i>. On
the other hand, getting a prick, or a <i>puncture</i>, in your car tyre
might well affect your
<i>punctuality</i>.
</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
Rather later, in
the 16<sup>th</sup>
C, after English took in <i>poignant</i>, it borrowed essentially the same
word directly from Latin in the form of <i>pungent</i>. However, this time
although the pricking was originally associated
with feelings, it gradually
came to refer to the pricking of the nasal passages and the tongue.
We could easily have ended up with <i>pungent </i>songs and <i>poignant </i>smells
had the words taken different paths. Another
thing we got from
Latin around this time was
<i>punctuation</i>, “marking with
points”, to the eternal displeasure of schoolchildren everywhere.
One final borrowing from around the same time is <i>punctilious </i>from
Italian <i>pontiglioso</i>, “on
point”, altered from the
Italian to look as if it came directly from Latin.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
So, we can see
that although English started off at the sharp end of the Norman
sword, it has a <i>pointed</i> history, <i>punctuated </i>by the borrowing of many
different words, some <i>pungent</i>, many <i>poignant</i>, but all carrying a
<i>punch </i>as they make their
<i>point</i>. </div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-37619397282408446552016-05-10T10:21:00.000-07:002016-05-10T10:21:53.183-07:00Double troubleNow. I'm going to warn you. This may be a bit boring and esoteric for some of you, so if you don't like in-depth, heavy-duty linguistic analyses, then sign off now. Only kidding! Well, OK, this post is a bit more technical, I admit, but bear with me. It's still bloody interesting (well, at least I think so).<br /><br />If any of you readers are from a part of your country where the dialect of English that you normally speak is not considered “standard”, this is mainly for you. As you may well know, in the UK, we have something known as “received pronunciation”, or “the Queen's English”, which is basically a way of being very snobby. Time was all BBC presenters spoke as if they had just had a suppository shoved up a place where it hurts – and it was still hurting. This dichotomy between the “official” version of a language and the “inferior” dialects is not confined to English. Indeed, around two hundred years ago in France local dialects were flourishing all over the country, until the central government gradually imposed the supremacy of its chosen form of French over the rest.<br /><br />Indeed, we can see the effects of different Old French dialects in modern English. Yes, after almost a thousand years, we still have that split with us. The Normans spoke a dialect of Old North French, while the standard Old French was spoken further over in the Paris area. The Normans brought over their dialect when they conquered England, but they and their successors also had possessions in other parts of France and brought over settlers and workers from these regions. As a result, different varieties of Old French were spoken in England, and in some cases essentially the same word would enter English at different times, with different pronunciations and different meanings.<br /><br />Two differences stick out in particular. Firstly, where standard Old French had the “ch” sound, Old North French retained the “c” sound – essentially Standard Old French palatalised many words from Latin with “c”, such as <i>chien </i>from <i>canis</i>, “dog”, and <i>chef </i>from <i>caput</i>, “head”. Secondly, mainly with words borrowed from Frankish, standard French changed the “w” into “g(u)”, while Old North French kept the “w”, hence standard French <i>guerre </i>from Frankish <i>werra</i>, “war”. So, here are some of the most common words which display these differences and still remain part of our language.<br /><br />In Medieval Latin, <i>capitale</i> was used to denote property and stock. In Old North French <i>capitale </i>became <i>cattle </i>and ended up referring to property with four hooves, two horns and loud moo sounds, while in Old French it became <i>chattel</i>, which came to denote moveable but inanimate property and is now rather dated. <br /><br />The Latin verb <i>capere</i>, “take”, produced many words which we have taken into modern English. From the Vulgar Latin form <i>captiare </i>came the Old North French <i>cachier</i>, “chase, capture”, which became our <i>catch</i>. What's strange about this verb is that in Middle English it was treated like an Old English verb and developed the irregular past tense <i>caught </i>rather than <i>catched</i>. The same Vulgar Latin verb, <i>captiare</i>, produce <i>chacier</i>, “hunt”, in Old French, which then entered English as <i>chase</i>. So now we have two words, originally with the same meaning, indicating two aspects of the same process: first you <i>chase</i> and then you <i>catch</i>. <br /><br />Here are two more verbs which have similar histories. Latin borrowed <i>carrus</i>, “chariot”, from a Celtic language, and then provided a variety of modern words from the root, including <i>car</i>, <i>carriage </i>and <i>chariot</i>. Late Latin created <i>carricare</i>, “transport by vehicle”, which became <i>carier </i>in Old North French and Anglo-French, ending up as <i>carry</i>. Meanwhile, from another meaning of <i>carricare</i>, “load a vehicle”, came Old French <i>charger</i>, which came to us as <i>charge</i>. So, although technically taxis <i>charge </i>you to <i>carry </i>you, they could equally do it the other way round, which would be rather interesting.<br /><br />What's the difference between a <i>castle </i>and a <i>château</i>? Well, essentially they're the same, both coming from Latin <i>castellum</i>, “fortress”, with <i>castle </i>coming into Middle English from Old North French with the Normans, and <i>château </i>coming into modern English directly from modern standard French via posh English holidaymakers (presumably). However, that's not the whole story. Old English had already borrowed <i>castle </i>from Latin with the meaning of “village”, and when the Normans came, <i>castle </i>changed from being a village to being a stronghold, much as we understand it now. In fact, when the Anglo-Saxons first settled in England, they took the Latin <i>castrum</i>, “fort”, and made <i>ceaster</i>, applying it to a variety of places, giving us such place names as Chester, Manchester, Winchester, Lancaster, Leicester, Worcester and Exeter, to name but a few. So a wine called Château Chester would essentially be repeating itself.<br /><br />Vulgar Latin <i>triccare</i>, “evade, cheat”, became <i>trikier </i>in Old North French, which gave us <i>trick </i>and <i>trickery</i>, which, of course, can range from rather innocuous to rather sinister in meaning. However, its Old French cousin from the same root, <i>trechier</i>, is far more serious, because <i>treachery </i>can see you end up in the Tower of London waiting for your head to be parted from your body. <br /><br />The Frankish were a German-speaking people who settled in France during the first three centuries CE and gave the country their name while losing their own language. However, they endowed French with many of their own words, with the result that French vocabulary has a sizeable Frankish contingent, much of which is related to Old English. One Frankish word, <i>warand</i>, “authorisation”, took two forms when it entered French: <i>warant </i>in Old North French and <i>garant </i>in Old French. The Old North French gave us <i>warrant</i>, and also produced <i>warantie</i>, which came into Anglo-French and later to us as <i>warranty</i>. Much later, in the 17th century, <i>guarantee </i>joined us from French, thereby giving us two words which have been an endless source of headaches ever since – do you have a <i>warranty </i>or a <i>guarantee</i>, and what the hell is the difference? No answers on a postcard, please!<br /><br />One last pair shows this “duality” in a way which is really a “triality”. The modern “<i>ward</i>” comes down directly from the Old English <i>weard</i>, “watchman, sentry”, though other meanings have developed over time. Frankish, being a cousin of Old English, gave Old North French the form <i>wardein</i>, which comes down to us via Anglo-French as <i>warden</i>. Of course, Old French changed the Frankish form to <i>garde</i>, which gives us <i>guard</i>. So we have three words essentially from the same root, which still refer more or less to the same thing, but which came to us via three different routes. Some other words from Frankish via Old French are: <i>guise </i>and <i>guide</i>, which are both related to the English <i>wise </i>and <i>wit</i>, ultimately from a root meaning “know” and “see”, and <i>guile</i>, which is related to <i>wile</i>. <br /><br />So there we are. There's no knowing the path a word will take away from its origins before returning to the fold. Let's be happy that they came back and enriched our language even more.<br /><br /> <br />The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-49008883824122412102016-04-21T08:13:00.001-07:002016-04-21T08:36:16.196-07:00Cooking up a French feastJust as with other areas of daily life, the Normans laid much of the lexical foundation for our modern cooking and feasting. Although many Old English food words survived into modern English, with <i>chicken</i>, <i>lamb</i>, <i>garlic </i>and <i>milk </i>among the most prominent, Middle English took in a wide array of French terms, which last until today, with some fascinating insights into medieval life.<br />
<br />
One of the most striking contrasts between words of French and English origin is that between animals and the meat from those animals. Indeed, the Old French word <i>animal </i>itself replaced the Old English <i>deor</i>, but <i>deor </i>didn't disappear, instead becoming specialised as modern <i>deer</i>. A fascinating fact about both these words is that they are from different roots meaning “breathe”. The Norman kings jealously guarded their rights to hunt deer, so much so that killing a deer was a capital offence. The fact that deer were the most hunted of animals is reflected in the root of the word for deer meat, <i>venison</i>, which literally means “hunted meat”. So, here we have clear signs that the reference to the live animal is English, while the reference to the meat on the table is French. <br />
<br />
We can see the same in other words contrasting the farm animal with the cooked meat. When the English <i>swine</i> was cooked, it became French <i>pork</i>, although <i>porc </i>in Old French also denoted the animal. Similarly, the English <i>cow </i>became the French <i>veal</i>, originally <i>veel</i>, “calf”, in Old French, and the English <i>bull</i> became the French <i>beef</i>. Strangely, the words <i>cow </i>and <i>beef </i>are from the same historical root. While <i>lamb </i>is use for the baby sheep, whether gambolling in fields or topped with mint sauce, the English <i>sheep </i>was transformed into the French <i>mutton</i>, which itself referred to the animal in French. Another pork product, Latin <i>lar</i>, “bacon”, gives us <i>lard </i>and <i>larder</i>, which was originally a supply of pig-meat products, and then the place to keep them.<br />
<br />
One particularly interesting contrast is between the English <i>milk </i>and the French <i>cream</i>. Anyone who is old enough to remember the gold-top bottles of milk delivered to the front door by the milkman will recall the difference between the milk, which occupied the bulk of the bottle, and the dollop of rich cream at the top. If milk had been delivered in this way after the Norman conquest, the irony would not have been lost on the English majority, reduced to peasants and serfs in their own country.<br />
<br />
The culinary plant world also has many examples of French borrowing. The Old English <i>laec</i>, which gives us <i>leek </i>as well as the second half of <i>garlic</i>, originally denoted the bulb we know as the <i>onion</i>, from the Old French <i>oignon</i>, ultimately from the Latin <i>unionem</i>, so called because the leaves of the bulb formed a <i>union </i>as opposed a clove, as with garlic. Any onion farmers reading this might be tempted to form an organisation known as the Onion Union. Presumably Lenin and Stalin ate Soviet Onions. Maybe the first train to deliver these vegetables to San Francisco was known as the Onion Pacific. OK, enough of that.<br />
<br />
The French also managed to give us <i>mushroom</i>, from <i>mousseron</i>, as well as <i>mustard</i>, <i>vinegar</i>, from <i>vinaigre</i>, “sour wine”, and <i>parsley</i>, from Latin <i>petroselinum</i>, “rock parsley”, borrowed ultimately from Greek. One interesting borrowing is <i>lettuce</i>, which supposedly got its name from the Latin <i>lac</i>, "milk", because of the milky sap which can be squeezed out. You also might want to top off your meal with a bit of <i>fruit</i>, itself from Latin <i>fructus</i>, “enjoyment, delight”. A <i>peach</i>, from Old French <i>pesche</i>, might go down fine, especially as it comes all the way from Persia, as supposed by the Latin <i>malum Persicum</i>, “Persian apple”. In fact, peaches come from China, but, for the ancients, Persia was far enough to the east.<br />
<br />
We can't leave this subject without paying a visit to the bakery. We think of <i>flour </i>as being white and dusty, but it's actually a variant spelling of <i>flower</i>, from Old French <i>flor</i>, with the idea that the finest grains came from the <i>flower </i>of the meal. Add water, and flour becomes dough, <i>pasta </i>in Latin. Old French <i>paste</i> gave us <i>pasty</i>, much to the delight of the Cornish, presumably, and also modern <i>pâté</i>. <br />
<br />
Finally, we have a some words from the French for bread which no longer have anything to do with it. You would share your bread, Latin <i>pan</i>, with someone known as your <i>companion</i>, “messmate”, who you would also travel with and presumably fight alongside. Your companions would then make up your <i>company</i>. You would also put your bread into a basket to carry on your horse, a <i>pannier</i>, though I doubt if modern bikers would take kindly to you stuffing bread into their panniers.<br />
<div>
<br />
So there you are, some of the words the Normans and the French gave us for our food. No doubt you could go out foraging for other words and find a few interesting titbits to tuck into. Happy hunting!</div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-40940891899734340802016-04-05T08:57:00.001-07:002016-04-05T08:57:21.344-07:00Body talkOur bodies are important to us. What I mean by that is our bodies are important in language terms. We use body words all the time with extended meanings: I've got to hand it to you; I'm heading up the team; he gave me the cold shoulder; you've got to have a heart; he hasn't got the stomach for a fight; leg it; toe the line. There are many more besides, most equally as colourful and expressive.<br /><br />So, what did the Normans give us in terms of our bodies? Well, quite a lot actually, and not what you might think, as most of the words bear little relation to their bodily origins. Anyway, here's a nice selection to delight in:<div>
<br /><b>brace, embrace</b><br /><br />If you've ever had a <i>brace </i>on your teeth you should be grateful that they weren't the size of the original brace, whose meaning has been pretty well lost here. In fact, you'd need an <i>embrace </i>to remind you of what the original meaning was. Greek <i>brakkhion</i>, “arm”, was borrowed by Latin as <i>bracchium</i>, which eventually became the modern French <i>bras</i>. On its way, it stopped off in Middle English via Anglo-French as <i>brace</i>, a pair of arms, which you can use to embrace someone.<br /><br /><b>chief, chef, chieftain, captain </b><br /><br />All these words mean basically the same thing, and indeed come from the same root, <i>caput</i>, in Latin, meaning “head”, and ultimately from the same root as head (<i>heafod </i>in Old English). The different meanings and pronunciations result from the time of their entry into standard English vocabulary. Old French tended to radically change the pronunciation of the original Latin words. It took the Latin form <i>capum</i>, a variant of <i>caput</i>, and produced <i>chef </i>in Old French, which came into Middle English through Anglo-French with the "ch" pronunciation. When the same word was re-borrowed in the 19th century directly from French, it carried the meaning of the "chief of cooking", hence its restricted meaning today. Like <i>chief</i>, <i>chieftain</i>, from Latin <i>capitaneus</i>, “leader”, came from Old French into Middle English. Strangely, <i>captain</i>, was borrowed directly from the same Latin word by Old French and delivered slightly later than <i>chieftain</i>, but with a different reference. So if you were to run a company, lead a tribe, cook and command a ship you could well be the chief, chieftain, chef and captain all at the same time. Just don't let it go to your head, though.<br /><br /><b>cattle. chattel, capital</b><br /><br />Here we are again – that “head” word, <i>caput</i>, this time from the same form that gives us <i>capital</i>. Now, we usually think of a capital as being the main city of a country, but these words come from the money-making meaning of capital, which was used in medieval times with reference to property, especially moveable property. Old North French produced <i>catel</i>, which came into Anglo-French and finally Middle English as <i>cattle</i>. It was only later that it was applied exclusively to moveable property with a leg at each corner and a “moo” sound coming out of the front end. Around the same time, <i>chatel</i>, “property, goods”, came into Middle English from Old French, and gave us <i>chattel</i>, which still carries the idea of inanimate objects as property. What's particularly significant here is that there are often two forms of the same word which come to us from Old French. Old North French kept the “k” pronunciation of the letter “c”, while standard Old French tended to change it to “ch”, with the result that we have <i>cattle</i> and <i>chattel</i>, essentially the same thing. We do, of course, also have the original form, <i>capital</i>, which was also borrowed via Old French, which took it directly from Latin without any changes. So a medieval Karl Marx would have had his work cut out deciding how to distinguish between <i>capitalism</i>, <i>cattleism</i> and <i>chattelism</i>. Or maybe not.<br /><br /><b>cheer</b><br /><br />We usually think of this word connected with good spirits, acclaim, thanks and drinking. However, it originally had nothing to do with these ideas and referred to the part of the body that expressed these feelings – the face. The Latin <i>cara</i>, borrowed from the Greek <i>kara</i>, originally meant “head, face”, and is related to the Latin <i>cornu</i>, which is in turn the same word historically as the English <i>horn</i>. Modern Spanish and Portuguese still keep the meaning of “face” in <i>cara</i>. So what happened in French? Well, the French pronunciation mincing machine took over, creating <i>chiere</i>, "face", in Old French, itself producing <i>chere </i>in Anglo-French. In Old French it took on the meaning of “look, countenance, expression”, and came to refer to the emotion that the face expressed in Anglo-French, hence “mood” in Middle English, both good and bad. It eventually developed its positive meaning, probably because it was more often used in the expression “good cheer”, and later became applied to the vocalisation of approval. So cheers, mine's a double vodka and tonic.<br /><br /><b>coast</b><br /><br />It would not surprise you that <i>coast</i> is the same word as <i>côte </i>in French and <i>costa </i>in Spanish and Portuguese, so beloved of British holidaymakers. They all come from Latin <i>costa</i>, “rib, side”, so the reference to the side of the land by the sea is clear.<br /><br /><b>core</b><br /><br />As we all know, the <i>core</i> is, among other things, the centre of a fruit or the Earth, so it would be no surprise that it most likely came from the Old French <i>coeur</i>, from Latin <i>cor</i>, <i>heart</i>, which is itself from the same root as the Latin word.<br /><br /><b>coward, cue, queue</b><br /><br /> Who's going to run away in fear? Who's going to take the first shot at the pool table? Who's going to stand in line? Well, the most appropriate way to decide might be to toss a coin and see who gets tails, as that's essentially what all of these words mean, all coming from Latin <i>cauda</i>, “tail”. Old French <i>coe </i>produced <i>couart</i>, which came into Middle English as <i>coward</i>, presumably from the idea of putting the tail between the legs like a dog, or turning tail and running. Both <i>queue </i>and <i>cue</i>, which is a variation on the spelling, came in later from Middle French, with <i>queue </i>referring to a long line and <i>cue </i>referring to a long piece of wood.<br /><br /><b>front</b><br /><br />Unsurprisingly, this comes the part of the body that is faces forward. Latin <i>frons </i>meant “forehead” and <i>front </i>came from Old French into Middle English with not just that meaning but also the other meanings that extended from it.</div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>gorge, gorgeous</b></div>
<div>
<br />If you thought someone was <i>gorgeous</i>, you would be looking at one part of their body only. No, not that! You'd be looking at the neck, and with good reason. Late Latin produced the word <i>gurges</i>, “throat, gullet”, which came into Old French as <i>gorge</i>. We tend to use it in its geographical sense, but in Old French it also mean “bosom”. It is assumed that it was a reference to the beauty of a woman's bosom, or the beauty of the jewellery that adorned it, that produced <i>gorgeous</i>. <br /><br /><b>language</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b>Not surprisingly, <i>language</i>, a variant of the Old French <i>langage</i>, comes from <i>lingua</i>, “tongue” in Latin. The Old Latin form was <i>dingua</i>, which is from the same root as English <i>tongue</i>, which we occasionally use with the meaning of language, as in “speaking in tongues”.<br /><br /><b>maintain</b><br /><br /> If you <i>maintain </i>something, you quite literally hold it in your hand. Latin <i>manutenere </i>produced Old French <i>maintenir</i>, which came into Middle English as <i>maintainen</i>. From holding in the hand, it developed the meanings of preserve, keep, sustain and support, though, of course, you no longer have to do these things with your hand. We can see the same use of hand in words like <i>manual</i>, <i>manufacture </i>and <i>manipulate</i>. Presumably, a medieval pop group known as "Ye Beatles" would have written a song entitled "I Wanna Maintain You". OK. I apologise for that.<br /><br /><b>sanguine</b><br /><br />Imagine you were in a medieval battle and your enemy ran you through with a sword. You would be quite <i>sanguine</i>, but not in the sense you would think. Latin <i>sanguis</i>, “blood”, produced <i>sanguineus</i>, “bloody”, which in turn produced Old French <i>sanguin</i>, “blood-red”, giving Middle English <i>sanguyne</i>, “blood-red cloth”. However, the use of <i>sanguine </i>to describe a cheerful or hopeful disposition comes from the medieval idea of an excess of blood as a humour producing good moods, presumably displayed by a ruddy face. Paradoxically, a sword through your middle would produce plenty of blood, but not necessarily an abundance of good humours. </div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-38899039343477232572016-03-23T08:52:00.001-07:002016-03-23T09:07:47.415-07:00It's been a hard day's plight: the story of journey and travelWho doesn't love travel? Come on! Hands up! No? Oh, all right. There's always one who thinks travel is torture, but if that's you, you're in good company. And you're quite right. At least you would have been in good company a few hundred years ago. <i>Travel</i> is quite literally torture, or at least it was. And how was your <i>journey</i>? As long as it was 24 hours, you were fine. If it took 48 hours, that would be two journeys, 72 hours - three journeys, and so on. These two words, both supplied to English courtesy of the Normans, have come a long way from their origins and much of the way, at least for <i>travel</i>, it wasn't very pretty. So let's start from the beginning, like all good journeys, and travel the long road to the present.<br />
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First of all, how did <i>journey</i> start on its journey? A few thousand years ago, a group of nomads somewhere in south-east Europe or west Asia spoke a group of dialects that we term Indo-European, ultimately the distant ancestor of both English and French, as well as most of the languages of Europe and south Asia. Although linguists cannot be certain of the exact nature of the language these peoples spoke, they can trace the origins back from the modern forms of many words as well as the forms in ancient languages like Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.<br />
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One postulated form in Indo-European is <i>*dyeu</i> (postulated forms are always written with an asterisk, as they can't be verified, never having been recorded), which had the meaning of “shine”. It produced the Latin <i>dies</i>, “day”, as well as a variety of words in other languages, most of which also meant “day”, clearly because the day is the time when the sun shines. Strangely enough, the English <i>day </i>is not from this root but from another root meaning “heat, hot season”. However, we do indeed have a word which descends from this root right down through Germanic and into modern English, and that word is <i>Tiw</i>, which was the name of the ancient Germanic sky god. Indeed, this sky god even had a day named after him – <i>Tiwesdaeg</i>, better known today as <i>Tuesday</i>. Whether it is indeed the brightest of days is beyond this discussion.<br />
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The Latin <i>dies</i> passed directly into modern Spanish as <i>día</i> and Portuguese as <i>dia</i>, but underwent some changes before French and Italian inherited it. <i>Dies </i>produced the Vulgar Latin form <i>diurnum</i>, which was transformed into French <i>jour</i> and Italian <i>giorno</i>. Old French also produced the word <i>journee</i>, which denoted either a day's work or a day's travel, so originally a <i>journey</i> in Middle English denoted only how far a person could travel in one day, hence a journey lasting a week was in fact seven journeys. We also have <i>journeyman</i>, which was originally a reference to a day worker. <br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a> So, we can see that <i>journey </i>quite literally travelled on a bright road to the present. <i>Travel</i>, however, travelled a far darker road. It actually started out as Latin <i>trepalium</i>, literally “three stakes”. <i>Palus</i>, “stake”, was formed from a Latin root <i>pag-</i> meaning ”fix, settle”, which is also related to the words <i>pax</i>, “settlement, peace” and <i>paciscor</i>, “settle, pay”, which, indeed, come to us as <i>peace</i> and <i>pay </i>respectively. <i>Palus </i>came to mean “wood”, as that was what stakes were made of, resulting in the modern Spanish <i>palo</i> and Portuguese <i>pau</i>. <br />
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At some point in Roman times, an instrument of torture was devised, consisting of three stakes driven into the ground, hence <i>trepalium</i>, which seems to have become widely used and more sophisticated, giving rise to the Late Latin verb <i>trepaliare</i>, “torture”, from which came the Old French <i>travailler</i>, “torment, trouble, vex”. Now, anyone who has been in a difficult job will know how much people complain about their work, having a tyrant as a boss, or slaving away all day, and so on. So it was that <i>travailler </i>came to mean simply “work hard”, just as it did in Spanish <i>trabajar </i>and Portuguese <i>trabalhar</i>. <br />
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Middle English inherited <i>travail</i> from the Normans, but it was used for suffering and hardship rather than just work. So, how did it become <i>travel</i>? Well, we're so used to comfy trains, coaches and planes (at least in first class) that we tend to think of travel as a fairly relaxed and enjoyable activity, but it was far from that in the past. Imagine negotiating the rutted roads, mud, rain, snow, cold, heat, toil, tedium and danger, not to mention the sore feet and sore backsides. No wonder travel was a travail. The closest travail to that these days would be the guy sitting next to you as the plane takes off on a flight to Sydney, Australia, who says “You going to Australia? So am I!” <br />
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So there you are. A long day's journey into night is quite literally that. Yet, the idea of travel broadening the mind in the days of yore would have been far less appreciated than the idea of travel bruising the backside or fouling the feet. Just remember the next time you sink into your first class seat, press the recliner and sip your free cocktail, that travelling in the olden days would have been rather less enjoyable, and the only freebies you'd have got would have been the thumbscrews. <br />
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<br />The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-45758984573302290862016-03-19T05:09:00.002-07:002016-03-19T05:12:26.530-07:00More from the Normans: Falling into Disrepute<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
English has inherited a variety of words from French, courtesy of the Normans, which are, well, not the kindest words to use about people and their habits. These words started out perfectly respectably, but over time came to denote some of the less favourable aspects of the human character. However, this blog delights in explaining the provenance of these words and celebrating their existence, because they tell us so much about the creativity and inventiveness of the people who used them in their daily language. Remember, if it hadn't been for the Normans, we wouldn't have these gems.</div>
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<b>Cheat</b><br />
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This word has been used so much over time to call someone out and expose their dishonesty: the footballer who dives for a penalty, the husband or wife who plays away from home, the student with the answers written on their wrist (or, in this day and age, on a smart watch) in the exam room, the poker player with a card up their sleeve - all these people stand to hear that most incriminating of cries – YOU CHEAT! But how did we get here? It's all down to the biggest cheat of all in most people's eyes – the taxman.<br />
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From the Latin verb <i>cadere</i>, “fall”, English has inherited numerous words. The compound verb <i>excadere</i>, meant literally “fall out”. This gave rise to the Old French noun <i>eschete</i>, literally “that which falls to someone”, and by extension “inheritance”. In mediaeval England, if there was no heir to an inheritance, it would then go to the state. The state being what it is, the meaning soon extended to “confiscation by the state”. If you owned land or property, and a state official came along and claimed it for the state for no valid reason, you would, no doubt, feel sorely cheated, and as a result, the word came to be applied to any sort of deception or trickery. So the moral of this word is – never trust government officials; they're the original cheats.<br />
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<b> Coven</b><br />
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The Beatles once sang “Come Together”, and if they had lived in ancient Rome, they would have sung <i>convenite</i>. The Latin verb <i>convenire </i>gives us such words as <i>convene </i>and <i>convention</i>, where we can still see the original idea of coming together. However, there are two other words which retain the original meaning of coming together. English inherited <i>convent </i>from Old French with the idea of people coming together for religious reasons. This eventually became restricted to females coming together in a religious order. However, an alternative form, <i>cuven</i>, came to denote a rather different group of gathering females. Essentially, then, if you want to join a group of women engaged in supernatural worship, you had better check which type of worship you would like to engage in, so that you don't mix up your convents and covens. And check carefully before you sign a <i>convention </i>or, indeed, a <i>covenant</i>. Your very soul may depend on it.<br />
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<b>Menace</b><br />
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If you're ever walking home one dark night and someone approaches you, pulls out a knife and threatens you with it, it won't be very pleasant, but at least your attacker is being true to the root meaning of <i>menace</i>. This borrowing from Old French comes from the Latin <i>minae</i>, which denotes sharp things which jut out, and which are therefore a threat. A related word also referring to something rather bigger which juts out, <i>mons</i>, and hence <i>mountain</i>, also a gift from the Normans. <br />
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On a stranger note, you may well feel threatened while you walk along the seafront at your favourite seaside resort. Middle French gave us <i>promenade</i>, and you may well wonder what that has to do with threats. Well, in Latin, the verb <i>minari</i> meant "threaten", and the related verb <i>minare</i>, denoted the act of driving animals along while shouting – in a sense threatening the animals to make them move. From this came <i>prominare</i>, “drive on”, but by the time it reached us, it simply meant “walk”. <br />
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So once again, the Normans have enriched our language with a variety of words, but it's not as if we didn't have our own “jutting out” word – though this one is even stranger. Yet another Latin root, <i>mentum</i>, denoted the chin, as that's the part of a person's face that sticks out the most. However, in the related root in the Germanic languages, it moved up the face a bit, and that's what we get <i>mouth </i>from.<br />
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<b>Mess</b><br />
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A mess wasn't always a mess. It only became a mess because the consumption of a mess made a mess. I hope that's all clear. Latin <i>mittere </i>meant “send”, and became the French <i>mettre</i>, “put”. In the process, it also gave English <i>message</i>, <i>mission </i>and a variety of other words. So, how did sending things become a <i>mess </i>(leaving aside the postal service)? In Late Latin and on into Old French it referred to a portion of food that was placed on a table to be eaten, and by Middle English it had come to denote any dish, particularly one consisting of a broth of porridge. By extension, it came to refer to the people who sat down to eat, giving rise to the modern meaning of armed forces' eating quarters. It also denoted the slops given to animals, which ended up providing us with the modern meaning so beloved of parents when describing a baby's meal or a teenager's bedroom.<br />
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<b>Puny</b><br />
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When were you born? Was it before or after a sibling? In the past, if you were well down the list in a big family, it was likely that you would turn out to be <i>puny</i>. In nature, the first-born is usually the one that gets most or all of the food, and the last-born is left to grow weak and often die. From the Latin <i>post</i>, “after” and <i>natus</i>, “born”, Old French created <i>puisné</i>, “born after”, and hence <i>puny</i>. So, if you're the first-born and a heavyweight boxer calls you puny, you could politely correct his erroneous judgement. Or maybe not.<br />
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<b>Savage</b><br />
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If you go down to the woods today, prepare for a big surprise. If you go down to the woods today, you'll hardly believe your eyes. For every bear that ever there was has gathered there, slavering and ravening, ready to rip you apart and feed on your carcass. Remember, this only happens in the woods. In any other environment they're perfectly docile and friendly.<br />
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The Latin for “wood, forest” was <i>silva</i>, and something “from the woods” was <i>silvaticus</i>, which also carried the meaning of “wild”, presumably because the woods were where the wild things were. The form changed to <i>salvaticus</i>, becoming <i>sauvage</i> in Old French, which the Normans gave to us as <i>savage</i>, “fierce, ferocious”, later becoming “wild, untamed, bold, cruel”, and eventually “uncivilised, barbarous”. Presumably, then, people who live out on the open plain are paragons of civilisation. <br />
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<b>Varlet</b><br />
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In my previous life as a feudal landowner, I decided that I needed someone to work for me in a personal capacity. So I went around all the people who had been granted permission to occupy my land, and eventually made an agreement for one of them to become my personal servant in my manor. However, little did I know that he was harbouring malevolent intentions towards my property, and one day when I awoke, I found that he had made off with my favourite horse, the scoundrel! I had engaged a <i>vassal </i>as a <i>valet</i>, but he turned out to be a <i>varlet</i>!<br />
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I suppose I should have seen it coming. Latin borrowed <i>vassus</i>, “servant”, from a Celtic source, and Medieval Latin created <i>vassalus</i>, “manservant, domestic, retainer” from it. From Old French it came into Middle English as <i>vassal</i>, denoting a person who was granted permission to occupy land by a lord in return for allegiance.<br />
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One derivation of <i>vassalus </i>which occurred in Gallo-Romance was <i>vassellitus</i>, “young nobleman, squire, page”, which was reduced to <i>vaslet</i>, and then <i>valet </i>in Old French, and was then introduced into Middle English as <i>valette</i>, “manservant”. An alternative form of <i>vaslet </i>which reached Middle French from Old French was <i>varlet</i>, which originally came into late Middle English as “knight's servant”, but then descended in meaning to “rascal, rogue”. <br />
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The message from this is, next time you leave your car for a car valet to clean and smarten up, if he makes off with it, he's morphed into a varlet, just like the word.The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-22856193055123422652016-02-29T02:58:00.000-08:002016-02-29T03:00:50.687-08:00950 years, and all that.So it's 2016, quite a big year, especially if your name is Shakespeare. Don't get me wrong. The Bard truly deserves to be celebrated for the 400 years since he died. It seems like his birth/death day anniversary is the biggest thing we are going to remember this year. I mean, last year, there was the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2, the 100th anniversary of a variety of WW1 battles and the 200th anniversary of Waterloo (no, not ABBA winning the Eurovision Song contest, though, I admit, it does seem like 200 years ago), not to mention the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (Shakespeare again – O for a Muse of fire that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention…) and the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. All of them are worthy of great attention.<br />
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Yet, the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare, mighty though it is, can be superseded by the anniversary of another event, one which is (or at least used to be) imprinted in the mind of every schoolchild in Britain. It's not really a sexy anniversary because the real sexy anniversary arrives in another fifty years, but as I don't think that I, and most probably you, will be around then, it seems prudent to remember it this year, especially as its effects are so pervasive in our culture.<br />
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As a way of measuring the significance of this event, let me look back at the first two paragraphs of this text and list these words: <i>quite, especially, Shakespeare, deserves, celebrated, anniversary, remember, variety, battles, Eurovision, contest, admit, mention, ascend, invention, signing, attention, superseded, event, imprinted, school, sexy, real, arrives, probably, around, prudent, effects, pervasive, culture.</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>If it were not for this event, it is highly unlikely that many, if any, of the words listed would exist in our language. And the reason is this: 950 years ago, on 14th October 1066, a gentleman by the name of Duke William II of Normandy engaged in battle and defeated another gentleman by the name of King Harold Godwinson on a hill situated around seven miles from the town of Hastings on the Sussex coast in England. William was descended from a group of Vikings who had settled in Normandy some 150 years earlier. They soon discarded their native Norse language, adopting the French language and expanding their influence in the area. Harold had been crowned king of England on the death of Edward the Confessor, but both King Harald of Norway and Duke William claimed the throne, and both prepared to invade England to realise their claims. King Harold defeated King Harald in the north of England before hurrying back south to face William, as a result of which his army was not at their operational best. Harold famously died on the battlefield and is reputedly the figure depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry with the arrow in his eye.<br />
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Up to that time, Old English had been a thriving language of government, education, literature, culture and everyday use, although Latin was also used for liturgical and educational purposes. If we look at Modern German, we can see to an extent the grammar, structure and vocabulary that once characterised Old English. However, fate struck a mortal blow to Old English on that day. That one day is the reason why the words listed in italics above exist in our language. Soon after William consolidated his control of the whole country, Old English ceased to be the language of all the people and all the classes. It became submerged, downgraded, relegated and ignored. In short, it became a third-class language. Latin remained the language of the church and of education, Anglo-French became the language of law, culture, literature and the elite, and Old English belonged to the downtrodden hordes.<br />
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The Norman invaders, comprising maybe no more than 10% of the entire population, ruled over the English masses. You could say it was like the bottles of milk of yesteryear that the milkman used to leave on our doorsteps: the rich 10% at the top was cream, a French word, and the 90% under that was milk, an English word. To make it in the Norman world, you had to learn French. No king of England ever spoke English for some 200 years after the conquest. Forget Richard the Lionheart talking posh English to Robin Hood in Hollywood films – he spoke only French. For some 200 years after the Norman conquest, the English royalty controlled large parts of French territory and many people from all parts of France came and settled in England, bringing Norman French and standard French, which we can still see in our language today.<br />
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It would take until the 13th century for the nobility to start speaking English and the 14th century for Middle English to emerge as a language of culture and literature, as so wonderfully and entertainingly shown by the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. By that time, huge changes had taken place, and French words had replaced vast numbers of Old English words, transforming the face of our language forever. The vocabulary of Modern English retains only 20-30% of the original Old English vocabulary, albeit the most common words in use, but over 60% of our vocabulary comes ultimately from Latin, most of that courtesy of the French introduced by the Normans.<br />
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And that is what this blog will celebrate in the lead up to the 950th anniversary of that famous, fateful day. It will look at some of the strange phenomena, unusual journeys, fascinating coincidences and bizarre histories of some of these words and word families, and answer these and many other questions:<br />
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How did one word that originally meant “light” give rise to the word “journey”, and another word that originally meant “three stakes” give rise to “travel”?<br />
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Why are animals English when they're alive, but French when they're cooked?<br />
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Why is our spelling so confusing, and our pronunciation so ridiculous? Try explaining the pronunciation of “temperature” and “comfortable” to a Spanish or Italian native speaker.<br />
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Why is a noble “count” a completely different word from an election “count”?<br />
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Why do we have so many words for the same thing? Why do we have warranties and guarantees? Why can monarchs be kingly, royal and regal?<br />
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Over the next few months leading up to the great day. I hope you will be my companion (literally, the one who shares my bread) for the whole journey. I'll try to make it as fascinating and entertaining as I can, but I don't really have to – it does the job by itself. So, welcome to 950 years: What have the Normans ever done for us? And in answer, I think you will find – a hell of a lot!</div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-4583823537249151002014-10-03T17:02:00.001-07:002014-10-03T17:02:36.415-07:00Take a little peek behind the Latin and the Greek.Hell fire! Is it really over six months since my last entry? I must be getting lazy! Still, here are some tasty titbits to tittilate your taste buds!<br />
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Scientists, intellectuals and inventors have routinely plundered the vast treasure chests that are Latin and Greek to pilfer words that they can use to name their new inventions, ideas and discoveries. Yet how many of us know what they actually mean? Well, here are a few with their literal translation into English. Hope you enjoy wandering through them and maybe you can try them on others and show how damned erudite you are, old chaps (and chapesses).<br />
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<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
ocean –
swift-flow</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
television –
far-sight</div>
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helicopter –
screw-wing</div>
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bicycle –
two-wheel</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
astronaut - star-sailor</div>
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aeroplane - air-wanderer</div>
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electricity - amberness</div>
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petroleum - rock-oil</div>
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automobile - self-mover</div>
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telephone - far-voice</div>
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monarchy - single-rule</div>
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democracy - people-power</div>
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omnibus - for-all</div>
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aristocracy - best-power</div>
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dinosaur - terrible-lizard</div>
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oxygen - acid-born</div>
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atom - uncut</div>
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microscope - small-look</div>
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energy - in-work</div>
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hydrogen - water-born</div>
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geography - earth-writing</div>
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psychology - mind-word</div>
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archaeology - very-old-word</div>
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astronomy - star-law</div>
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economy - house-law </div>
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technology - art-word</div>
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thermometer - heat-measure</div>
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philology - love-word</div>
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philosophy - love-wisdom</div>
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photography - light-writing</div>
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autobiography - self-life-writing</div>
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<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That's enough for now, but you should be able to work out some other ones for yourselves. I'll put up some more tasty morsels later. Sooner than six months for definite.</div>
The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-22083651355481727492014-03-30T12:04:00.000-07:002014-03-30T12:12:52.338-07:00What's (new) in a name - 2?Another post about how we have shortened forms for out most common and
favourite names, like Mick or Mike for Michael, Dave for David and Liz
for Elizabeth. These are the "Bs".<br />
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<u>Boys</u><br />
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Balthazar: Taz<br />
Barnaby: Bar, Barn, Nab, Bee <br />
Basil: Ill<br />
Baxter: Axed<br />
Benedict: Edict, Kneedick<br />
Benjamin: Jam, Jammy<br />
Bernard: Earner<br />
Blake: Lake, Ache<br />
Bradley: Addle, Rad, Raddle<br />
Brandon: Brand, Ran<br />
Brent: Rent, Wren<br />
Brodie: Bro, Ode, Road, Roadie <br />
Brogan: Bro, Rogue<br />
Bruno: Brew, No, Rune, Uno<br />
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<u>Girls</u><br />
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Barbara: Arbour, Bar, Barb<br />
Bailey: Ail, Ale<br />
Beatrix: Ricks, Tricks<br />
Belinda: Belly<br />
Bernice: Ernie<br />
Beverley: Ever, Early<br />
Bianca: Bee, Yank<br />
Brenda: Rend, Wren<br />
Bridget: Bridge, Ridge, Jet <br />
<br />
Look out for letter "C"!The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-90876391454494537082014-02-12T14:59:00.003-08:002014-02-12T15:04:30.262-08:00What's (new) in a name?Been off for a while doing this and that, but as Arnie once said (or more than once, probably) I'm back. So what's up next? I was thinking about names, how we have shortened forms for out most common and favourite names, like Mick or Mike for Michael, Dave for David and Liz for Elizabeth. I thought - why not think of some new shortened forms which have never been used before? So I started researching, and here's the first crop of what will be a regular feature, while the names last, of course. Maybe some of them will catch on, though, somehow, I doubt it. So here goes:<br />
<br />
<u>Boys</u><br />
<br />
Abraham: Bra, Ham<br />
Adam: Dam<br />
Ainsley: Sley<br />
Alan: Lan<br />
Alastair: Alas, Last, Stair<br />
Albert: Ert<br />
Amos: Aim, Moss<br />
Andrew: And, Rue<br />
Angelo: Gel, Jello<br />
Anthony: Ton<br />
Archibald: Bald<br />
Arnie: Knee<br />
Arnold: Knoll, Old<br />
Arthur: Thur<br />
Austin: Tin<br />
<br />
<u>Girls</u><br />
<br />
Abbey: Bee<br />
Abigail: Big<br />
Adelaide: Del, Deli, Laid<br />
Agnes: Ness<br />
Alice: Lice<br />
Alisha: Leash<br />
Allegra: Leg<br />
Amanda: Man<br />
Amelia: Meal, Eel<br />
Anabelle: Nab<br />
Anastasia: Nastay, Stasi<br />
Angelica: Jelly, Licker<br />
Anita: Neat, Eater<br />
Anneka: Neck, Necker<br />
Annika: Knicker<br />
April: Ape<br />
Astrid: Rid<br />
Aurora: Roar<br />
<br />
Look out for letter "B"!The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-27470826411800234162013-10-25T14:05:00.000-07:002013-10-25T14:05:05.992-07:00Things you never knew about your body parts, Part 3
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Welcome
to the last instalment of the trilogy that is “Things you never
knew about your body parts”. Let's start at the top, not the
very top, but a bit down, at the mouth. We think of the mouth as
being something which can open to let food and drink enter and words
exit, but actually, “mouth” started out a bit further down as
something usually quite prominent and certainly not open. The
original root of “mouth” basically meant “jutting out”,
giving a number of derivations that we use in modern English. The
Latin word most closely related to “mouth” is <i>mentum</i>,
chin, which suggests that “mouth” actually started life out as
the chin, and somehow climbed up the face a little. Other words
related to “mouth” and <i>mentum</i> are Latin <i>mons</i>, which
gives us “mountain”, and <i>minari</i>, which means “threaten”,
on the basis that something jutting out is threatening. So there you
are – your mouth was once a chin and could have been a mountain and
even a threat.</div>
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On
the subject of chins, one word underscores the effects of culture on
language, which might lead to the strangest formations, often ending
up having no basis in reality. The Russian for “chin” is
<i>podborodok.</i> Apart from being quite long, it doesn't seem
particularly interesting, until you understand that the <i>pod </i>bit<i>
</i>means “under” and the <i>borod </i>bit means “beard”
(yes, it's historically the same word). Essentially, then, <i>podborodok</i>
means literally “underbeard”, suggesting that the original word
for “chin” was lost and that beards were more significant than
what was under them. Strangely enough, a woman also has a <i>podborodok</i>
even though she doesn't have a <i>boroda</i> (at least, the vast
majority of women don't). But then Russian always did do strange
things with the body, with claws for hands and nails for feet.
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Now
let's take a wander around the body for the next three words, all of
which have transcended the mere physical and have come to describe a
variety of feelings and emotions. First of all, when we think of a
situation in which everyone agrees and gets on well, we have
“harmony”, from Greek <i>harmonia</i>, literally “joining
together”, from <i>harmos</i>, “joint”, related to English
“arm”. And what surrounds all our joints and bones? Flesh, of
course, which is <i>sarx</i> in Greek. What's that got to do with
feeling? Well, if you want to strip the flesh off the bone you use
the verb <i>sarkazein</i>, which also came to mean “sneer, speak
bitterly”, sort of metaphorically tearing strips off someone. This
gave us <i>sarkasma</i>, or “sarcasm”, which doesn't really do
much for harmony when it's used.</div>
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The
last of the trio is by far the most intense and uncontrolled emotion
that most people will ever endure, though, actually, only half of the
human race should really be able to suffer it, or so the other half
would maintain, and that's “hysteria”. So which half can suffer
it? The Greek for womb was <i>hystera</i>, and we see this in the
medical procedure “hysterectomy”, in which the womb is removed.
The ancient Greeks believed that each emotion was associated with a
specific part of the body, and as such, hysteria was held to arise in
the womb, and therefore to be associated only with females. So there
we are – only women could become hysterical.</div>
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So
we come to the last of these meanderings through terms for parts of
the body, finishing up with the region just below the womb, in fact.
Under sixteens need to turn off their computers and go to bed now.
Firstly, we will talk of avocados and witnesses. What do they have in
common? Well, in a manner of speaking, a great deal, as they refer to
the same thing, or rather, same two things. “Avocado” is the
Spanish representation of the Nahuatl word <i>ahuacatl</i>, a fruit
which the Spanish first encountered when they landed in Mexico and
trekked up to Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs gave it that name for its
resemblance to the real <i>ahuacatl</i>, “testicle”. Now,
“testicle” is interesting in its own right, as it comes from
Latin <i>testiculum</i>, “little witness”, from <i>testis</i>,
“witness”, which we can see in “testify” and “testimony”.
The idea behind the little witnesses was that they testified to a
man's virility.</div>
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Still
in the same area, let's turn to the two other features which were
named after certain other things they resembled. Originally, Latin
<i>penis</i> meant “tail”, but it was also used to refer to the
male appendage, which, naturally, is the one we use today. Funnily
enough, you can use one derivation of <i>penis</i> to sketch a
picture, as “pencil”, from <i>penicillus</i>, actually means
“little brush”, since brushes were long and hairy, just like
tails. Now, the pencil may be mightier than the sword, but the sword
gets put into the sheath. And what is the Latin for sheath? Yes,
you've guessed - <i>vagina</i>. And on that note, this little journey
round the body comes to an end.</div>
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The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-34450261978956448152013-10-21T04:02:00.000-07:002013-10-21T04:20:22.633-07:00Things you never knew about your body, Part 2<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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Welcome
to Part 2 of my little wander through the weirder side of names for
parts of the body. In this part we'll start off with measurements.
Probably the most obvious part of the body used as a measurement is
the foot. The main problem with using a foot to measure things is the
fact that feet are generally not the same length from person to
person, so until a foot was defined as twelve inches, it was rather
inaccurate, as all measurements based on body parts must have been.</div>
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The
other four measurements in this discussion are all based on the upper
limbs. The most obvious is the “hand”, though this is only used
nowadays as a measurement in association with horses, despite the use
of hands for measurement going back to the ancient Egyptians. Three
other measurements take up more than the hand, stretching some way up
the arm. The first is the “ell”, a word of Germanic origin
related to Latin <i>ulna</i>. The ell was a measurement from the tip
of the middle finger to, naturally, the elbow, which, of course,
takes its name from the ell. The second is the “cubit”, which
denotes exactly the same length as the ell. In fact, cubit comes from
Latin <i>cubitum</i>, “elbow”, which is actually related to Greek
<i>kybos</i>, “space above a cow's hip”, and also to English
“hip” itself. So there we have it: the ell is the same as the
cubit in length, the elbow is the same as the <i>cubitum</i> as a
joint, and the ell is related to the ulna, the bone leading from the
elbow to the hand, while “cubit” is from the same root as “hip”.
So in a real sense, you're elbow's connected to your hip bone.</div>
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The
third is actually something which could be alternately the same
measurement as a cubit, alternately a weapon, and which ends up as
being not so much a measurement as an indicator of size. The Greek
<i>pygme</i>, related to Latin <i>pugnus</i>, meant “fist”,
which, of course, usually only exists at times of anger and conflict.
A <i>pygme</i> also represented the same length as a cubit, and this
meaning was applied to a mythical race of people known in Greek as
<i>pygmaioi</i>, reputed to be only the height of a cubit, thereby
giving us modern “pygmy”.</div>
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Another
interesting aspect of body terminology is the way we can use parts of
the body to make things happen. Here are some which may never have
occurred to you. First up, what do you say when someone sneezes? Why,
"bless you", of course. However, if you knew the original meaning of
“bless”, you might not be so willing to say it. We think of a
blessing as being a priest making the sign of the cross, but 1500
odd years ago it was something quite different. The pagan Germanic tribes
which came to Britain at the fall of the Roman empire engaged in
animal sacrifice, and blessing involved sprinkling blood on the
object to be sanctified. The ancestor of “bless”, Old English
<i>bloedsian</i>, meant “sanctify with blood”. When Christianity
arrived, the practice changed but the term remained. What's more, the
French <i>blesser</i>, “wound”, is from a Frankish root similar
to Old English <i>bloedsian</i>. Both roots referred to the letting
of blood - in war in French, in religion in English. You could say
that Stephen King's Carrie was blessed in an English way with pig's
blood, and returned the favour by treating her teachers and
schoolmates to quintessentially French <i>blessures.</i></div>
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On
the subject of religion, have you ever thought about the way many
children are taught to adhere to religious dogma? One way to ensure
they learn and never forget the teaching is to inculcate it into
them. Now, you might think that violence is not the best way to
teach, but “inculcate” tells another story, whether literal or
metaphorical. The Latin <i>calx</i> meant “heel”, and <i>inculcare</i>
meant literally “stamp in”, the idea being that once stamped in,
knowledge would remain. However, if a child did not want to be
inculcated, he or she might do a little stamping of their own by
being recalcitrant. <i>Calx</i> also produced the verbs <i>calcitrare</i>,
“kick”, and <i>recalcitrare</i>, “kick back”, rather like a
horse or a donkey. “Recalcitrant” was borrowed from Latin in the
19<sup>th</sup> C with the meaning of “obstinately disobedient”,
rather like a kicking donkey. Stamping and kicking - who would have
thought that the education process could be so violent?</div>
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If
all that stamping and kicking has taken it out of you, have a rest.
And what better way to have a rest than to doss for a while? And
while you're dossing, looking up at the stars or the ceiling, you can
think of the best way to doss and why it's called dossing at all –
because you're on your back, which, of course, is <i>dos</i> in
French, from Latin <i>dorsum</i>. So there you have it – if you lie
on your front, you can't be termed a dosser. Another thing you can do
with your back is to write on it, or rather, let someone else write
on it, especially if you want to be a bank cheque. “Endorse”
comes from the Old French <i>endosser</i>, “put on the back (of)”
(with the spelling changed later). So if you're a politician running
for office, you can always get important supporters to endorse you,
perhaps with a giant stamp on your back saying “The Next
President”.</div>
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Of
course, if you do run for office, you'll have to persuade enough
people to give you their vote to make sure you win. So you'll spend
days consulting the polls, until the day when the real poll comes –
the only one that matters. That's when everyone lines up and
officials count their heads, usually one per person. OK, that would
be rather time-consuming and impractical in a modern democracy, but
that's how polls started out – head counts. “Poll” in Middle
English originally referred to the head, or just the hair of the
head, before it came to mean “head count”, and later “election”.
The old meaning can still be seen in that much-reviled term
“poll-tax”, literally a tax per head of population. Now, let's
move from the head to the other end of the body, at least for
quadrupeds - the tail. Latin <i>coda</i>, “tail” has produced
three words in modern English. The tail-end of a musical piece is
termed the “coda”; the tail that you wait in is a “queue”,
which comes via French; and the tail that you use to hit balls on a
table is a “cue”, an alternative spelling of “queue”.</div>
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One
other part of the body can prove useful in amusing the public, as
long as you know how to use it for speaking - your belly, <i>venter</i>
in Latin. That's precisely what a ventriloquist does – speak from
the belly, though in a sense, we all speak from the belly from time
to time, with sounds that say “I can't eat another morsel”.</div>
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Part
3 coming up soon.
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The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5720711342129188703.post-28757410318935784082013-10-17T17:42:00.000-07:002013-10-17T17:56:48.836-07:00Things you never knew about your body: Part 1<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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We
all know the names of the parts of the body, where the parts are and what
they do. What we might not know are the strange origins of some of
those names, as well as some of the bizarre uses that parts of the
body have been put to, literally and figuratively speaking. Over the
next few posts, I'll be expounding on some weird and wonderful
linguistic facts regarding certain parts of our bodies.</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">Let's
start with the origins of some of these terms. Your shoulder is quite
a large, flattish bone. If you took it out of your body, you might be
able to use it in the garden (or maybe you wouldn't be able to, as
one of your arms would be inoperative), because it probably comes
from an ancient root meaning “dig”. Of course, if you do anything
vigorous like digging, you'll need plenty of muscles – all those
little mice running around your body. For indeed, that's what muscle
means, coming from Latin </span><i>musculus</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
literally “little mouse”, so named because in ancient times muscles </span><span style="font-style: normal;">flexing </span><span style="font-style: normal;"> were
thought to resemble mice moving around. Just think of that next time you're down at the gym watching those bodybuilders pumping iron. Of Mice and Men.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">Still on
the subject of animals, the most prominent features of carnivores are
their fangs, those big, sharp pointy teeth. What are they used for?
Seizing and gripping, of course, which is precisely what fangs do,
as evidenced by these exact meanings in Old English. By the time
Dracula came along, he no longer needed to seize or grip his victims
with his fangs; he just needed to plunge them in the neck. One group
of animals, to which we indeed belong, are the mammals, so named
because they have mammaries to supply milk to their young. This term came about because baby Romans used to cry out </span><i>mamma!</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to their mothers, who responded by offering them their mammaries. Of course, the big question is, do baby vampires say "fangs for the mammaries"?</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">Other
body parts with interesting origins include the skeleton. While we
think of the skeleton as all the bones in the body connected together, that's
a relatively modern usage of the word, as originally a skeleton denoted
mummification, from the Greek </span><i>skeleton soma</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
literally “dried up body”, from the verb </span><i>skellein</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
“dry up”. So, with Halloween coming up, it would be more appropriate to wear a mummy costume than a skeleton one. </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">The
extremities of the skeleton consist of fingers and toes, ten of each.
However, technically speaking you should have twenty toes and no
fingers, or at least, the toes should be on your hands. One of the
most common and obvious things we do with our fingers is point. In
fact, that's why we call them digits. Latin </span><i>dicitus</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
came from an ancient root meaning “point out, show”, related to English
“teach”. </span><i>Dicitus</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
changed in time to </span><i>digitus</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
and referred to the things we point with, namely fingers. The idea of
digits being pointers was clearly the case in the Germanic languages,
because the Old English </span><i>ta</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
which gives us the modern “toe”, comes from the same root as
</span><i>dicitus</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Essentially,
"toes teach", at least according to their ancient meanings. In time,
“finger” took over the meaning of the digits on the hand, while toes
remained on the foot, having long lost their association with
pointing. Unless, of course, you wear shoes with pointy toecaps.</span>
</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">One
last part of the skeleton has come to mean something you might pop
into your mouth and crunch away on. No, this is nothing to do with
cannibalism. It involves the Latin </span><i>bracchius</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
which meant “arm”, and which produced </span><i>brachitellum</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
“little arm”. This was borrowed by Old High German as </span><i>brezitella</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
and used to denote a biscuit made in the form of folded arms, the
modern “pretzel”. So, logically speaking, that's something to think about next time
you're at a cocktail party.</span></div>
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Look
out for some more tasty morsels in the next post on body parts.</div>
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The Wordman of Alpertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04498562980371543690noreply@blogger.com0