The Beauty of English

[XerXesXu]

Or drop - we’re constantly losing words, eg. ‘olden’. Who uses ‘olden’ anymore? Or ‘fain’. Or ‘defenestrate’ or (read it carefully) ‘defalcate’.

And not it’s not just words; English keeps dropping letters. No, I’m not talking about the take-my-bat-and-ball-and-go-home dropping of the ‘u’ in words like ‘colour’ or ‘ardour’. Instead, I refer to letters which have been entirely pink-slipped. I remember being puzzled by the letters ‘æ’ and ‘œ’ as a child. Both are gone from English now and there are an handful of others. The letter Tharn (ϸ) was a soft ‘th’ long since dropped and effectively replaced by ‘y’ as in, eg. ‘Ye olde inn’.

Diacritics are almost gone, too, although I still insist on using a few like ‘rôle’, ‘fiancée’ or (a personal double-points favourite) ‘naïveté’. I found them fun and still do, but that’ ‘Oldespeak’ talking.

I wasn't aware that 'olden' had dropped out of use, but I've noticed 'walken' and 'talken' and many 'en' endings are now quite rare in the past perfect, but common when I was young.

 

[XerXesXu]

I've only ever seen "ϸ" referred to as "thorn" rather than "tharn", but they sound similar enough that neither needs to be wrong.

I use æ sometimes in stories here: areolæ (plural of areola, not to be confused with aureolæ). One also sees it in the plural of "alumna".

Here's an entertaining and enormously informational vid on the subject:

His other vids are also wonderful, and at least to me, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

"Ye" is just "The", and always was. One less letter to pay the sign-painter for.
(But maybe that's just me talking from something other than my mouth.)

At one time part of the pattern of the language was that interrogative aspirates 'wh' words 'where, when who, why 'etc invited a thorn word response, 'the, these those, they them, there, this that etc The pattern is still there but most people aren't conscious of it. Few people still aspirate or enunciate 'th', but you get a lot of brownie points if you do.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Oh, but like I said somewhere else around here, "fæces" is so much more elegant than "shit" or its little brother, "poop".

I've seen "orthopædic" frequently in current use in the US, as well as pædophile and similar in British sources such as BBC News.

I've not seen faeces, paedo, orthopaedics, anaesthesia etc actually written with ae-ligatures in years, though. Maybe in pre-1980s publications. A lot of oe words like foetus have mostly lost the o as people realised they hadn't actually come from that Greek spelling at all, so fetus is more common now.

Pet peeve: how the classic British word 'poo' is losing ground to the American 'poop'. The only Brit allowed to yell about poop is Toad of Toad Hall.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Some words hang on only in particular phrases - we still talk about olden times or hearts of olden glory. 'I fain would' is uncommon but used, and defenestrate has had a surge in popularity since a spate of unfortunate accidents in Russia.

Hale (healthy) survives in hale and hearty, spick only in spick and span, petrels are only stormy, only crowds get to be madding (thanks to Hardy), etc.

 

[alohadave]

I've not seen faeces, paedo, orthopaedics, anaesthesia etc actually written with ae-ligatures in years, though. Maybe in pre-1980s publications. A lot of oe words like foetus have mostly lost the o as people realised they hadn't actually come from that Greek spelling at all, so fetus is more common now.

It's indicative that the diphthong in spoken English is being dropped for the simpler monophthong sound.

Sometimes it takes time for the written form to catch up with how people speak.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Anyone mention the Bay-induced portmanteau, sharknado?

Em

 

[Kumquatqueen]

It's indicative that the diphthong in spoken English is being dropped for the simpler monophthong sound.

Sometimes it takes time for the written form to catch up with how people speak.

To clarify - those words are still written in British English with ae, just it's incredibly rare to see æ.

 

[SimonDoom]

Anyone mention the Bay-induced portmanteau, sharknado?

Em

Not to mention, courtesy of weird goings on in California today, Hurriquake.

 

[Bamagan]

Not to mention, courtesy of weird goings on in California today, Hurriquake.

Full circle award!

 

[MrPixel]

I've not seen faeces, paedo, orthopaedics, anaesthesia etc actually written with ae-ligatures in years, though.

Interesting. Piece of cake on the Mac - 'œ' is Option-Q, and 'æ' is Option-Single-Quote. Right there, sitting all alone in their corners, quietly wishing for that dashing fellow in the tux to ask them for a moment on the dance floor. ...Sigh...

 

[MillieDynamite]

I don't dance with men, dashing or not, you know, the whole lesbian thing gets in the way.

Interesting. Piece of cake on the Mac - 'œ' is Option-Q, and 'æ' is Option-Single-Quote. Right there, sitting all alone in their corners, quietly wishing for that dashing fellow in the tux to ask them for a moment on the dance floor. ...Sigh...

 

[colddiesel]

"Maybe" had fallen into disuse by the end of the 19th century so that some dictionaries labelled it archaic. But it made a comeback. "Mayhap did not." 'Appen it will betimes- as is still heard in Northern British English.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Mayhaps it will if we use Mayhap more often.

"Maybe" had fallen into disuse by the end of the 19th century so that some dictionaries labelled it archaic. But it made a comeback. "Mayhap did not." 'Appen it will betimes- as is still heard in Northern British English.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Not to mention, courtesy of weird goings on in California today, Hurriquake.

Wow! Someone should have mentioned that.

 

[XerXesXu]

It's indicative that the diphthong in spoken English is being dropped for the simpler monophthong sound.

Sometimes it takes time for the written form to catch up with how people speak.

If you can't pronounce or hear diphthongs, Sinitic languages are not for you.

 

[nice90sguy]

FIFY.

"Wherefore" means "why."

..as anyone with a smattering of Swedish knows

 

[nice90sguy]

"portmanteau word" was a phrase invented by a literary hero of mine, Lewis Carroll, who invented so many of them that he had to invent the phrase too.
The most widely-used of his invented words is probably "chortle" -- a portmanteau of "snort" and "chuckle"

 

[Rustyoznail]

If you can't pronounce or hear diphthongs, Sinitic languages are not for you.

Sorry, dip thongs?

View attachment 2263719

 

[SimonDoom]

Sorry, dip thongs?

View attachment 2263719

I'd rather see a dip thong than hear it.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Pet peeve: how the classic British word 'poo' is losing ground to the American 'poop'. The only Brit allowed to yell about poop is Toad of Toad Hall.

KQ, you'll be pleased to know poo is still strong over here.



Edit: I seem to be the Chief Derailer tonight.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

KQ, you'll be pleased to know poo is still strong over here.

View attachment 2263741

Edit: I seem to be the Chief Derailer tonight.

Suddenly the Millennium Dome's Body Zone, where you entered a huge animatronic body through an escalator into the vulva/penis, with pubic hairs 4 feet long and a louse the size of a sheep, seems much less traumatic...

 

[MillieDynamite]

Some horror has an absolute beauty to it. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the best at beautiful horror.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

 

[SimonDoom]

KQ, you'll be pleased to know poo is still strong over here.

View attachment 2263741

Edit: I seem to be the Chief Derailer tonight.

Poo palace?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Some horror has an absolute beauty to it. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the best at beautiful horror.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

There's a beautiful graphic novel of that and some of Poe's other works. Punchdrunk did a wonderful immersive theatre experience of them - Masque of the Red Death - which was incredibly unnerving. Five hundred viewers all wearing witch-doctor masks, wandering past the pieces of action in near-silence, is unnerving enough to start with, but this made their Faust look positively cute and fluffy.

 

[jehoram]

Verily, I fain cherish the tongue; mark the circumstance that exceedingly ancient words endure as lawful, and wherefore may be wielded rightfully. Forsooth, as the language doth live and flourish, it doth hold fast to all its virtuous recordation. Thus, blithely thine mirthful alacrity towards ostentation may capriciously comport, and tarry not eftsoons lest wot, haply, henceforth peradventure thee remembrance is false.

It's my new quill. It corrects things by itself.

It needs more adjustment... "thine mirthful alacrity" should be "thy mirthful alacrity" although "thine alacrity" would be grammatical, since the following word starts with a vowel. It's the same construct as "an apple" versus "a ripe apple.

I wasn't aware that 'olden' had dropped out of use, but I've noticed 'walken' and 'talken' and many 'en' endings are now quite rare in the past perfect, but common when I was young.

I just heard those in a rap song: "I'm walken proud and talken trash."

KQ, you'll be pleased to know poo is still strong over here.

Goes nicely next to "pee," doesn't it?