Published on 12, July, 2020
Words fascinate me, I love them and I know so many and can even spell a few of them! I find different words give so much more texture and depth to what we say. I find the origins of words as interesting as the words themselves and the different uses for the same word although it can all get confusing when you have to work out which witch to use and weather/whether it will make a difference to waht you're saying.
Is English the only language to have so many similar words or words that change with context?
I also have a theory that that dialect words and accents follow the boundaries of the old Anglo-Saxon countries, if you look at a map of the original kingdoms pre Alfred the Great, then the variety of accents beccome more apparent. Of course i some areas such as the North East you have to factor in a large amount of Scandinavian words and accents too and along the borders of Wales.
Do you have favourite words and least favourite? I do't like the word "genre" mostly because it's hard to stop saying it and it ends up with a few extra "re-s" takcked on the end as you run out of breath whilst saying it.
I also gecome faascinated with "F" and "Ph", such as fantastic and phantasmagorical
I always look up the etymology of words to see where it came from. I feel as though language is "alive" in a way. It lives through the those who speak it, it transforms and evolves throughout the spans of generations, even collecting words from other languages into it's own, and it dies if no one speaks it anymore.
I'm just glad English doesn't have the masculine and feminine types of words that other languages seem to have. And I've realized that one word could be feminine in French, but masculine in Spanish! It all sounds very confusing to someone like me.
'The bill' is masculine in Italian - il conto - but feminine in Spanish - la cuenta. While in French it hides its feminine gender 'l'addition.