628: tomorrow and morning Aug 27, 2016

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English has two clear words for 'morning' and 'tomorrow', but not every language does: not even English at some points in its history. In German, for example, 'morgen' (which gives us the unit of area, 'morgen': the amount of land plowable in a morning supposedly) means 'morning' but also 'tomorrow'. 'Tomorrow' (as was covered briefly in Word Facts July 9, 2015) comes from 'to' and 'morrow', a rarely used word now, but was widespread in Middle English. 'Morrow' comes from 'morn' (the sounds we hear in 'morrow' come from other declensional forms). Unsurprisingly, perhaps, 'morning' also comes from 'morn', but was modified on the same pattern as 'even+ing'.

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