Word Facts

There are very few words in English that end in lax vowels, including 'meh', 'eh', and 'nah'. 'Meh' was coined by the Simpsons tv-show which often does experiment with language. All of them will be found in everyday speech, but tends to not be included in the rest of a clause. To try to fit 'eh' in the middle of a sentence without being separated with punctuation would be difficult, and if you listen, there is almost always a long break between the expressions and the rest of the sentence like 'eh, I don't really like it".

The opposite of a vowel, in a sense, would be a consonant, in that if a letter is not one, it must by default be the other. The words used to be more related to each other. 'Vowel' now comes from the Latin, 'vocalis (littera)' which means 'vocal (letter)'. 'Consonants' on the other hand, are go with vowels, and even the word itself is derived from the Latin parts 'con-' meaning ‘with’ and 'sonare' which means ‘to sound’, because almost all syllables in English are made up of vowel-consonant clusters. I hope that you've enjoyed all of these, now 600, posts.

Some names for areas have combining forms, such as 'Afro-' for such as in Afroasiatic, or 'Indo-' as in 'Indo-European'. The combining form for 'China', however, is 'Sino' as in 'Sino-tibetan'. The form itself does not come from the word 'China' but instead the Latin 'Sinae' meaning "the Chinese". Many other languages including Greek, Arabic, and Sanskrit had words for "China," beginning with 'sin-', probably from the Ch'in dynasty. Not all of those languages had the English 'ch' sound, but English does, so it was possible to take the word from 'Ch'in' or 'Qin' (the exact dynasty that gave the name is the subject of debate), but other languages has to assimilate the sound to make it pronounceable.

Every language has a set of rules that are second-nature to native speakers, subconsciously followed, such as how in English no one would add an attributive adjective before a noun, since "the pencil yellow" makes little sense. When people are creating the comparative form of an adjectives, there are rules governing whether people say 'more...' or add an '-er' suffix. For one-syllable words, the convention is to add '-er', with exception to words that end in nasal sounds. For two-syllable words, people use 'more...' unless the word ends in a 'y', 'er', 'le' or ow', in which case the word would take a '-er'. For all three-syllable or longer words, people say 'more...". Of course, like everything in English there may be exceptions, but that is a fair rule of thumb.

An older term for nonsense, less used today, is 'bunkum', and much like nonsense in politics still, it originated within the House of Representatives. In the early 19th Century, it was unclear whether Missouri was going to be annexed as a slave- or free-state, so a debate was held. As a representative from Missouri, Felix Walker, spoke, rather than addressing the issue at hand, he reportedly talked of local issues from his county, Buncombe County in order solely to make his constituents happy.

As nouns, 'design' and 'sign' are not necessarily vastly different, but as verbs, the meaning of the words were originally much more similar. In late Middle English the verbal form meant what can now only be expressed with the word 'designate’. 'Sign' however, in Middle English, had a similar meaning to what is has today: 'to mark'.

The Latin word for 'name' gave many English words the names that they have now. 'Name' itself has Germanic roots, but is connected by an Indo-European root with Latin's 'nomen', which can be seen letter-for letter in the word 'nomenclature', a word to describe the act of naming something (in scientific fields). More interesting perhaps is that 'noun' also comes from this Latin word, since nouns are words to identify things and people (and concepts etc.) by name. Finally, in grammar the word 'nominative' is used to describe the syntax of a word when it is the subject of a sentence, and it shares the same root.

Marriage has led to the creation of many words. 'Bridegroom' comes from the Old English, 'brȳdguma', which itself can be broken into the parts 'brȳd' meaning ‘bride’ as it does today, and 'guma' which meant ‘man’, separate from the Old English 'mann' which meant 'person'. The change from ''brȳdguma' to 'bridegroom' occurred in Middle English due to association with the word, 'groom' which meant ‘boy', since 'guma' had become an obsolete word.

In romance languages, it is possible to create multiple verbs from a single root by adding prepositions as prefixes. Words such as 'receive', 'deceive' 'conceive' and 'perceive' all come from the same Latin word, 'capere' meaning 'to take', but with different prepositions. The nounal form of all of those words ends in '-ception'. Excluding all of the newly created words to describe the metaphysical based off of the Christopher Nolan movie, Inception, there are a slew of words that only exist in this nounal form, including 'contraception' and 'inception', which all come from the participial form of 'capere' which is 'captus'.

The word 'Slav' comes from the Byzantine Greek word 'Sklabos', from the Old Church Slavonic 'Sloveninu' and is probably related to the word for "word, speech", since the name was used to describe a member of a community of speakers. The word 'Slav' itself gave English another word. Through the Old French word 'esclave' meaning ‘Slavic', Middle English gained the word, 'slave'. The reason is that some South Slavic people had been conquered in the 9th century, and the connection between the those Eastern Europeans and servitude lasted in the minds of the English.

Much like the endings, '-like' or '-ish', '-esque' is added onto the end of nouns like 'carnival' as used in translations of Mikhail Bakhtin's work or 'Kafka' in order to create the adjectival form. The word 'grotesque', however, is somewhat different (or differentish, I could say), because while the ending was added onto a noun the same as any other, it was added in Italian so people don't have the same connection. A 'grotto' is a structure resembling a cave, and in ancient Rome, these would often be painted with obscene imagery. When excavators found these paintings, they felt the images were repulsive, and so called them 'grottesca' ('grotto-esque') and the word became a synonym for ugly or repulsive.  See more of the '-ish' suffix here .

The suffix '-ish' has a variety of different uses as a tool to form new words. As a Germanic equivalent to '-esque' (more on that tomorrow), '-ish' can be added to create adjectives from both nouns and other adjectives. Many nationalities from Northern Europe such as English, Welsh, Danish, Swedish, Flemish etc–as well as some religious groups–end with the 'sh', which goes back to the form for adjectives from Old English. In Modern German, the '-isch' suffix is one of the most common ways to create the adjectival form for a given word. In addition to many adjectives created from nouns such as 'boyish', the suffix also has diminutive properties for adjectives themselves, so that something clearly defined word like 'tall' can become more loosely defined like 'tallish'. Nevertheless, when the suffix is attached to verbs such as 'establish', that ending is not the same, and it is in fact of Romantic origins. 

Many times when new words enter a language, they are met with dislike and argumentation. A word that most of us regard as perfectly normal now was once thought of as wrong. 'Balcony' is from Italian, and when people began to use it more often in English with the pronunciation that is used, sticklers didn't like it. Those people referee the original Italian in which the final vowel was accented, not the 'a' which is accented in English.

The difference between a state and a province can seem arbitrary, especially to people from the USA and Canada. Both words are used to describe a large regional division of a country, but the two have different governing-rights. The governments of the USA and Canada follow a federal system, so all of the states or provinces still are constituent members under the federal government, blurring the distinction. Provinces do not necessarily have to be part of a constituent member of a federation such as in China. That country has provinces, but China has a unitary government, not a federal system.

Medieval manuscripts show that among the oldest words, in English were “I,” “we,” “two,” and “three” were some of the earliest. This makes “I” one of the shortest and oldest words in the English language. It is also the most commonly used word in English conversations. Nevertheless, 'the' is the most common word in written texts.

To ostracize someone now just means to exclude someone from a social circle, but the term was once more specific. In ancient Greece, people seen as dangerous to Greece could be forced into exile by vote, as was the democratic way. The vote would be cast on potsherds made usually of shell called 'ostrakon', from which the word gained its origin. As well, the English word for 'oyster' is related, thanks to the connection to shells, and not because of mollusk-banishment.

Words themselves have no intrinsic value or meaning, which is reason there is more than only one language, as well as the fact that a word can take on different meanings, and meanings can take on different words as time goes on. Even though the word 'emu' has always denoted large flightless birds since its creation, it has not always meant the same one. The word was originally the Portuguese 'ema', but referred to the cassowary of New Guinea. For a time afterwards, the word referred to the rhea of South America. Starting only in the 19th century was 'emu' in its current sense. 

Phlegm can come in a variety of colors such as white, green, or yellow. The word derives from Greek via French and Latin, from 'phlegein' meaning 'burn'. That Greek word is related to an English color through an Indo-European root, but it is not any of the 3 aforesaid colors; it is related to 'black'.

The idea of slime is rather vague, and really anything damp or gooey could be considered such. Related words of other languages may have different meanings that as a sum are the same, but individually are more specific. The Modern German word, 'Schleim' means 'mucus' and unlike in English, this word is more formal enough to be used medically. The Latin word 'limus' which shares the Indo-European root means 'mud', and likewise the Greek equivalent means 'marsh'. 

It is not uncommon to see that two words are derived of a same, older word. The cause of this can be one of many things, but usually it is the case that the two words entered the same language relatively independent. The word 'coy' entered Middle English meaning 'quiet, shy' as it does today from Anglo-French, 'quoi, qui, koi', which itself is ultimately from the Latin, 'quietus'. If you didn't already guess, that is the same root for 'quiet', but that word was created directly based off of the Latin instead.

'Mathematics' has a very specific meaning to most people now, and even the word may bring up ideas about numbers and other abstract symbols. The word did not have such a specific meaning in the past. Not only were all doctors considered the same, that is to say doctors of medicine and doctors of philosophy did not have such distinctions like they do today, but the word, 'mathematics' comes from the Latin "(ars) mathematica" meaning "mathematical (art)," which from Greek 'mathēmatikē (tekhnē)", from the root, 'manthanein' meaning ‘learn’ which was applied to many other fields.

Plenty of words used in day-to-day speech originate from specific jargon. A couple of centuries ago, the Mississippi river proved to be useful for commerce, and as English-speakers and goods started flooding in, new words started to be created to accommodate the changing times. On the boats, the best and most expensive seats were at the top since they had the best view, but the problem was that the only was to go north in the river is by way of a steamship, and those ships had flutes at the top to let out smoke. So that the rich people didn't get covered in soot, tall smokestacks or high flutes were put in, thus giving us the word 'highfalutin' or 'highfaluting'. 

Although words and suffixes can change meaning over time, the general sense usually remains. The suffix '-dom' such as in 'kingdom' comes from the Old English meaning 'decree', but in the word 'fandom', it just denotes a relative domain. Of course, plenty of words are related as well. The Spanish and Italian title, 'Don' and more closely related, the Portuguese 'Dom' all come from the Latin, 'dominus' meaning 'master'. From here we get 'domain and perhaps 'domicile' as well. 'Fandom' is not, in this way, a product of only the root, and the suffix '-dom', but a product of all these ideas that are related from the vernaculars of different languages. 

Most words in English and many other languages that belong to scientific jargon stem from Latin or Greek. For centuries, Latin and Greek were the lingua franca of European academia, and even today, most words that are created for scientific use are from those two languages. The words 'leeward' and 'lukewarm' are both special since they both come from Germanic origins, but had been used so frequently that they were appropriated into scholarly vernacular.

The official language of a country does not always reflect the true demographics of the nation. Many countries only have one official language even if they have large populations of different ethnic groups. Some countries, such as Wales or Greenland, will change the official language in order to revitalize their respective native languages even if at first very few people speak it. Other countries, such as Belgium which has 3 official languages, French, Flemish, and German, will base the official languages off of tradition but not much reason. In Belgium, German is only spoken by around 1% of the population; more people there speak Arabic, but there is no official usage of it. 

The somewhat confusing demonym of the Philippines is Filipino, with two fewer P's and one fewer H than the name of the country. Neither of those names are from the native language, Tagalog, which has been heavily influenced by Spanish and English. The earlier word for Filipino was 'Pilipino' but the name was changed later on to an F in order to create a stronger to make a connection to the European languages (Spanish and American English).

English can seem nonsensical and unstructured language with its many exceptions and inconsistent spelling. Any way you look at it, this would seem true. In fact, not only does 'nonsensical' embody this as an adjective, but is a wonderful example. Any prefix, such as 'non' used to negate a word, has to be attached to some root, but alas, there is no such word 'sensical'. The reason for this is that the concept of 'nonsense' took on rather a life of its own, and the suffix 'ical' was added to make the adjectival form, whereas the adjectival for of 'sense', 'sensible' was taken directly from the Latin word 'sensibilis'.

The way to form the past (perfect) tense and/or participles in many languages is usually just with a prefix or a suffix on a verb-stem. Excusing exceptions, a common way to do this in English is with the '-(e)d'. The French way to do this is often with an 'é'. So in that was 'passé' means 'passed', 'décidé' means 'decided' and 'arrivé' means 'arrived'. All of these cognates hopefully make logical sense, since they were originally French words anyway. You might expect that 'excité' would therefore mean 'excited', which is sort of true, but it really means 'horny'. Although both words come from the same Latin root, we got words such as 'incite' and kinetic', while the French used it sexually.

Anyone who has read The Book of Genesis would realize that humans are a great deal about 2 things: classifying, and families/tribes. This is fairly clear, as well, from the way that we use and create words. To make a list of words that are related to the Latin, 'genus' or Greek 'genos' meaning ‘birth, family, nation race or stock’ would be difficult to 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 (deriving from the verb 'generare', from 'genus'). Older words, such as 'genesis' come from that root, as well as newer words such as 'genocide' which was compounded in the 1940's. Even words from other languages have been created on the foundation of 'genos', such as the German, 'gene' which was created in the early 20th century. As well, grammatical gender comes from the French 'genre' (also where we get 'genre' from the earlier or ‘type or class (of noun)'. This list is just a smattering of the total amount of words to come from th

When languages need a new word to describe something that was unknown or had not existed for a long time, there are 2 ways of accomplishing this: the first is to take the existing word and adopt it from the original language, and the second is to create something new, usually from existing words. In the case of 'woodchuck' and 'groundhog', English-speakers did both ( see Word Facts from February 2, 2015 ). However, in the case of 'hippopotamus', that word was invented from the Greek for "riverine horse" in order to describe the animal in Middle English.

Basic grammar-skills are learned in infancy and early childhood and to (adult) native speakers it would be second nature. After years of knowing a language, certain things will feel wrong or out of place, such as hearing 'me' as the first word in a sentence, or 'I' as the last. It is for that reason that sentences like "he is smarter than me" or "it was me who made tea" might not make sense to a non-native speaker, since in both, 'me' is being used as the subject, but are generally understood in conversation. Some languages, such as German, though are not as lenient even colloquially, so "es war mich" (it was me) would not be automatically understood in the same way. The simple explanation for this is that the syntax of English words are determined by the position in a sentence, unlike German which has case-suffixes. For a refresher on case-endings, see Word Facts from June 25, 2016.