Fun Stuff > CHATTER
English is weird
pwhodges:
I've spelt out the two separate etymologies of till and until as reported by the OED at some past point in this thread, I think.
EDIT: it seems not. So:
Till: Old English (Northumbrian) til = Old Frisian til, Old Norse til; prob. from adverbial use of Germanic noun meaning "aim, goal" (cf till, verb)
Until: Old Norse und, = Old English und, Old Frisian und, Old Saxon und; Old Gothic untē. The later combination with till provides a duplicated meaning.
N.N. Marf:
There's a subtle difference I think (and will, maybe till death---only 'til I learn otherwise, if I 'wil) as of ``to'' v ``unto,'' or ``in'' v ``into.'' Each latter, of these 3 cases, seems more perfective than it's former.
Morituri:
'Weird' is usually said to be from old english, because any other source is uncertain or unknown. But old english, like modern english was a shapeshifting thief. I'm fairly sure we originally got 'Weird' from an *earlier* theft of 'qwer' from German.
In Chaucer's time it was sometimes spelt 'wyrd' or 'werde' and referred to someone's fate, or the meaning of their life, or to the events to come in the future, or for some event or transaction or even person that as a rule profoundly changed people.
I should think that wouldn't be a very bad thing to be called by people - depending, I suppose, on whether the changes associated with knowing me or etc were considered positive or negative.
But then again, that's not really how we use it today.
cesium133:
'I' before 'E', except after 'C', unless it sounds like 'A' like in 'neighbor' or 'weigh'.
Or it's weird.
Morituri:
most languages absolutely don't have words like 'twelfths', and it's somewhat hard for people who don't to say. English not only has it, but people often actually say all of the sounds in it.
The 'lfths' is more consonants in a row (even if two of them are 'th' and stand for one sound) than most languages will admit. And some also find a word that opens with two consonants 'tw' difficult.
ESL speakers almost always wind up saying 'tweffs' os something like that. (to be fair, most native speakers as well, UNLESS the word has the sentence's emphasis. In context nobody misunderstands, or even really notices, when people get it wrong).
The thing we use 'th' for is considered somewhat unusual among languages. Many apparently don't have the sound at all, or use it far less if they do, and it's one of the most frequent sounds in English.
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