azurewren ASKED:
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE ETYMOLOGIES OF “WITCH” AND “WIZARD”?
CERTAINLY!
ORIGINALLY, “WITCH” WAS ACTUALLY NOT SPECIFIC TO FEMALES. THERE WAS A MASCULINE VERSION, “WICCA” OR “WYCCA” IN OLD ENGLISH, AND A FEMININE VERSION, “WICCE” OR “WYCCE.” QUOTATIONS IN WHICH THE WORD “WITCH” IS USED TO REFER TO A MALE MAGIC-USER APPEAR AS LATE AS 1914. FROM THE EXPOSITOR,PUBLISHED JANUARY 1914, QUOTED IN THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY:
[Near Criccieth] there lives a long-haired, haggard old man whom the people about speak of as a ‘witch’.
BOTH VERSIONS OF THE NOUN ORIGINALLY CAME FROM A VERB, “WICCIAN” (WHICH HAD ROUGHLY THE MEANING LATER ASSOCIATED WITH THE VERB “BEWITCH”) — IT MEANT TO USE MAGIC/SORCERY/ENCHANTMENTS OR TO INFLUENCE A PERSON BY WAY OF MAGIC/ETC. TURNING VERBS INTO NOUNS — CALLED NOMINALIZATIONS — ARE QUITE COMMON, AND IT APPEARS THAT “WITCH” IS A NOUN OF THIS SORT.
WIZARD APPEARED LATER — IN THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD. IT COMES FROM THE ADJECTIVE “WISE” PLUS A SUFFIX, “-ARD” WHICH WE GOT FROM FRENCH, AND WHICH ALSO APPEARS ON WORDS LIKE “COWARD,” “BASTARD,” “BUZZARD,” “DRUNKARD,” AND SO ON. OFTEN, THE USE OF THIS SUFFIX MAY IMBUE THE WORD WITH A PEJORATIVE(THAT IS, NEGATIVE) MEANING, AS YOU CAN SEE WITH SOME OF THE WORDS IN THE LIST I GIVE HERE.
IN ANY CASE, WE GOT “WIZARD” AROUND THE MIDDLE OF THE 15TH CENTURY, AND IN THE ORIGINAL USAGE IT SIMPLY MEANT “WISE MAN,” AND COULD HAVE A SORT OF CONTEMPTUOUS MEANING — RELATED TO THE NEGATIVE ASPECT OF THAT SUFFIX, I RECKON. IN SOME OF THE EARLY QUOTES, THEY MAKE REFERENCE TO “WILY WIZARDS,” AND THE LIKE.
THE USE OF THE WORD TO MEAN SOMEBODY PRACTICED IN THE OCCULT ARTS CAME ABOUT A CENTURY AFTER THE WORD WAS FIRST INTRODUCED — THE MID 16TH CENTURY. AND FROM THERE, IT GOT SET ON ITS PATH TO THE MEANING OF “WIZARD” THAT WE HAVE TODAY.
THERE ARE TWO PARTICULAR KINDS OF CHANGE IN MEANING WHICH WE CAN SEE IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH: AMELIORATION, IN WHICH A WORD GAINS A MORE POSITIVE MEANING, AND PEJORATION, IN WHICH A WORD GAINS A MORE NEGATIVE ONE. IT IS INTERESTING THAT “WIZARD” SEEMS TO FOLLOW THE FIRST PATH, AND “WITCH” THE SECOND (IT GOES FROM SOMETHING MORE GENERALLY MEANING “MAGIC USER” TO SOMETHING MEANING “WOMAN ASSOCIATED WITH THE DARK ARTS”) — AND THIS SPECIFICALLY HAPPENS ONCE THE WORD BECOMES ASSOCIATED MORE NARROWLY WITH FEMALES.
IT IS WORTH MENTIONING THAT SOME PEOPLE HAVE CLAIMED PEJORATION IS MORE COMMON WITH FEMALE-ASSOCIATED WORDS. SEE ALSO “HUSSY,” WHICH ORIGINALLY WAS SIMPLY AN ABBREVIATION OF “HOUSEWIFE.”
KIND OF AWKWARD, ENGLISH!!!
DID YOU KNOW THAT THE WORD “LORD” IS A COMPOUND?
WELL IT USED TO BE ANYWAY
IN OLD ENGLISH IT WAS “HLÁF-WEARD”, LITERALLY “LOAF-WARD” — THAT IS, THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD, WHO KEPT THE BREAD THAT EVERYBODY ELSE WOULD EAT!
BY THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD IT WAS PRONOUNCED “LAFORD,” AND OVER TIME IT BECAME THE MODERN WORD “LORD.”
SIMILARLY: “LADY” IS FROM “HLÁF-DIE”, MEANING “BREAD-KNEADER”! ‘CUZ THE LADY WOULD MAKE THE BREAD APPARENTLY
WAY TO BE GENDER-NORMATIVE THERE, OLD ENGLISH
45 synonyms of the word 'food'
Food means “a substance we eat for nutritional and/or gustatory purposes,” but that word is bland. For a tastier experience, use one of its synonyms listed below to convey the connotation you desire your readers to digest:
1. Aliment: food as nourishment
2. Bite: a bite’s worth of food, but also a small amount of food, such as a snack, or a casual reference to a larger amount
3. Board: the food laid out on a table, from the association of board with table; also denotes the part of the housing arrangement known as room and board, where room refers to lodging and board to meals
4. Bread: a synecdochic reference to food (synecdoche is a rhetorical device in which a part stands for a whole, as in “All hands on deck” for “All sailors on deck”)
5. Chow: food (slang); also a verb, as in “Chow down”
6. Comestible: food (formal or mock-formal); also a synonym for the adjectiveedible
7. Comfort food: food that satisfies nostalgic yearnings for traditionally prepared meals
8. Cooking: food, especially as specifically prepared, as in “I like her cooking”
9. Cuisine: food prepared in a specific fashion, as according to cultural tradition, or the manner or style of cooking
10. Diet: the particular combination of food for a person, group, or society, or a combination of food specified for or by a person for health reasons and/or weight loss; also a verb referring to the process of improving or maintaining health and/or losing weight
11. Dish: a preparation of food served in a single container as part of a meal; also, a container or piece of dinnerware for cooking, serving, or eating food, or an attractive person, or a verb meaning “to gossip”
12. Eatable: food; also a synonym for edible
13. Eats: food, especially convenient or simple food (slang)
14. Entrée: the main course of a meal
15. Fare: food, in the sense of what is available or what is traditionally eaten
16. Fast food: food prepared rapidly, especially in restaurants that serve food quickly and at a high volume; also, used as an adjective in this sense or in that of something produced with little regard for quality
17. Feed: food for livestock; also used to describe an informal fund-raising event such as a crab feed in which a featured food is served with other dishes
18. Fodder: see feed; also refers to material in general that is readily available for use or consumption (“cannon fodder”)
19. Foodstuff: something used as food, especially as a raw ingredient in a food product
20. Goodies: edible treats
21. Groceries: food purchased at a store
22. Grub: see eats
23. Handout: food given free for charitable purposes
24. Home cooking: food prepared at home in a traditional manner, with the nostalgic connotation of comfort and familiarity
25. Larder: a supply of food, from the synonym for pantry
26. Meal: the food served at a particular sitting
27. Meat: see bread, or food consisting of the flesh of an animal other than a fish
28. Menu: the food served during a meal, or a list of food to be served; also, any list of offerings or choices
29. Mess: a meal served to a group of people who routinely eat together, as a ship’s crew; also, that group of people or the location where they eat, or a certain amount of food
30. Nourishment: food in the sense of something that satisfies the need to eat; also, the act or state of nourishing or being nourished, or something other than food that provides a corollary benefit
31. Nutriment: something that satisfies the need for nutrition
32. Pabulum: food prepared in a semiliquid state for ease of eating and/or digestion; also, communication of minimal value or sophistication thought to be acceptable to lowest-common-denominator consumers, or, rarely, communication thought to be intellectually stimulating
33. Provender: see feed, or food in general
34. Provisions: a supply of food made available for specific use, as by an expedition
35. Ration: a supply of food made available for a specific person, as a member of a military unit, or, in plural form, such food in general; also, a supply of another commodity as dictated by availability
36. Refreshment: a snack or small meal intended to sustain until the next meal
37. Slop: low-quality food, or leftovers given to livestock; also, garbage, excrement, or slush, or effusive communication
38. Store: see larder
39. Subsistence: the minimum amount of food necessary for survival; also, the equivalent in nonedible commodities
40. Sustenance: see aliment
41. Table: see meal and larder
42. Take-out: food obtained from a restaurant to be eaten elsewhere
43. Viand: see dish, or a piece or item of food, especially a particularly delicious one, and, in plural form, see provisions
44. Victuals: food, or see provisions; as victual, a verb synonymous with provision in the sense of supplying with provisions
45. Vittles: food (a dialectical spelling of victuals)
From: Daily Writing Tips
www.dailywriting tips.com
The American spelling of most words makes me want to cry.
Especially anything where an ‘S’ is transposed for a ‘Z’ (zed, not zee) and where words are disembowelled of their ‘U’s.
Oh and the one that really, really gets my hackles up is where they take cheque, as in a bank cheque, and they spell it ‘check’.
ANYBODY WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT DOUBLE NEGATION MIGHT BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THAT THE CLAIM THAT ONE NEGATIVE WORD “CANCELS OUT” THE OTHER (CLAIMS LIKE “BUT ‘I DON’T KNOW NOTHING’ MEANS THAT YOU KNOW SOMETHING!”) IS RELATIVELY NEW TO SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH.
OLD ENGLISH WAS A NEGATIVE CONCORD LANGUAGE! THIS MEANS THAT, LIKE OTHER NEGATIVE CONCORD LANGUAGES (RUSSIAN, FOR EXAMPLE), IT ALLOWED ADDITIONAL NEGATIVE WORDS TO BE ADDED FOR EMPHASIS! MORE NEGATIVE WORDS SIMPLY “ADD ON” TO ONE ANOTHER, RATHER THAN CANCELLING ONE ANOTHER OUT. SO FOR AN OLD ENGLISH SPEAKER, “I DON’T KNOW NOTHING” WOULD SIMPLY MEAN I REALLY DON’T KNOW ANYTHING! THIS DIDN’T REALLY DISAPPEAR UNTIL THE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD, WHICH MEANS THE 16TH CENTURY OR LATER.
IT NOW APPEARS THAT, ALTHOUGH STANDARD ENGLISH RULES HOLD THAT TWO NEGATIVES WILL FORM A POSITIVE, MANY PRESENT DAY ENGLISH DIALECTS STILL ALLOW NEGATIVE CONCORD, MUCH LIKE HISTORICAL STAGES OF ENGLISH!
“Avoid singular they if you want to; nobody is making you use it. But don't ever think that it is new (it goes back to early English centuries ago), or that it is illogical (there is no logical conflict between being syntactically singular and semantically plural), or that it is ungrammatical (it is used by the finest writers who ever used English, writers who uncontroversially knew what they were doing).”
—-linguist Geoffrey Pullum
Can anyone with good grammar help me, please?
- Waiting for the day Dean offers Castiel to try his pie.
- Waiting for the day Dean offers his pie for Castiel to try.
- Waiting for the day Dean offers Castiel his pie to try.
- Waiting for the day Dean offers his pie to Castiel to try.
- Waiting for the day Castiel is offered to try Dean’s pie.
Is there any of these correct?
Attentionnnn!
Now that I have your attention (hopefully)
I am quite desperate. For a course in university I need to conduct a survey, on certain sentences and see which ones people would perceive as correct or incorrect.
I would be eternally grateful if you could fill it out for me, so I can present the results on Monday.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re foreign or not.
http://surveys.questionpro.com/a/TakeSurvey?id=3234469
P.S - As for the Sherlock question. Other means unacceptable! I’ll try and fix it as soon as possible, because my partner has the password.
