Norman - interesting. Did you ever listen to Brian Redhead on Radio 4 where he discussed dialects and the origin of words - extremely interesting series of programmes.
Tracing back origins of many words is fascinating; look at all the names in the Lake District - ‘thwaite’ I believe is a Norse word ? - meaning ‘lake’ - and many surnames from that area ending with ‘thwaite’ - as in Postlethwaite. Many english villages carry the old Anglo-Saxon prefix or suffixes to describe local geographical features. English itself is totally mixed up with Latin, indian words, french words etc - real polyglot of mixed ancestry.
For those who say ‘well it’s just words’ - how about these - ‘n-g-r’, ‘negro’, ‘black’, ‘paki’ ‘slut’ or ‘whore’ ‘bastard’, ‘illegitimate’ - and many other words now considered inappropriate - right - words can be offensive.
Yes, people swear - I’m just as guilty. Go to any Groaniad forum and there’s the four letter disgusting language - usually referring to the Tories (and from the spelling & grammar obviously pseudo-intellectuals or zit-faced kiddies who chant ‘Oh Jeremy’)… but I am sad to see such offensive four-letter language used on a relatively tolerant and polite forum. Just me I suppose… but thanks for support from another poster ( G Pigney) I’m not really a lone voice…!!
Hope 2020 will not bring on the Chinese curse of ‘may you live in interesting times’; after the last 3 years feel I can’t take much more of all the shouting at one another over a democratic vote taken by the British people.
Happy New Year.
