I love History-of-English geekiness. More, more!
Well, one thing more. I learned the official term for one of my favorite word things: metanalysis. It's the term for when the initial letter for a noun transfers back or forth to the article preceeding it. Thus, a napron (which I'm guessing, but have nothing to cite to prove it, was probably related to a napkin) became an apron. Also, a nickname was originally an ekename ("eke" being the Old and Middle English word for "also"). I find that process to be just too damn cool!
"A norange" is another one; that's why the Spanish call them "naranjas" and we call them "oranges".
Mmmm. Spicy brains.
I love the Favorite Poems site. Now I have Gerard Manly Hopkins on the brain. "I caught this morning morning's minion." Love!
Isn't it a great site?! I'm going to link my classroom TV to my computer and show a bunch of them next week.
Hopefully. If I get the splitter-thingie I need.
I thought I was already logging off, but I had one e-mail to answer, and then I saw this:
Also, a nickname was originally an ekename ("eke" being the Old and Middle English word for "also").
Oh, that is cool!
In Hebrew, it's either archaeology (sp?) and 2000-years-old words from ancient Hebrew and Aramic, or the last century's re-innovated language, man-made, in a way. So just the difference in the processes of the ways the words evolve is already fascinaging to me.
Yeah, geek, I can't help it.
we call them "oranges"
The Hebrew word for orange ("tapooz") is a composition of two words, the one for apple ("tapoo'akh") and the one for gold ("zahav"), so an orange is a "golden apple". But that's not as cool as how its English name was formed. Also, the name was created this way on purpose, by the people who re-invented the Hebrew language at the beginning of the 20th century, so the whole process is different.
OK, really going home now.
The Hebrew word for orange ("tapooz") is a composition of two words, the one for apple ("tapoo'akh") and the one for gold ("zahav"), so an orange is a "golden apple".
Heh -- so I guess the phrase "comparing apples and oranges" doesn't work so well in Hebrew? (In English, "comparing apples and oranges" is idiomatic for "comparing 2 things so vastly different from one another that to compare them is pointless.")
"I caught this morning morning's minion."
Darling of daylight's dauphin!!! Sorry. Geekitude.
Being a Buffista means never having to say you're geeky.
Oooh, got this from Wikipedia's entry for metanalysis:
Umpire comes to us from the Middle English "noumpere," which itself is adopted from the Old French "nonper" (someone "without peer" who could act as an arbiter of a dispute).
Word histories can be so fun!
