Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
by Anatoly Liberman Language changes because so many people speak it and because even today it is impossible to control the norm. A community of English professors left on a desert island and allowed to breed would probably have preserved their sounds, forms, and vocabulary intact for a million years (if this group survived the […]
by Anatoly Liberman Many years ago, I participated in a meeting of Russian and British students in a town that was then called Leningrad. In the Soviet Union, everything, from theaters and community centers to parks and streets, was named after Gorky. At a certain moment, one of the British students began to giggle. When […]
by Anatoly Liberman The terms King’s English ~ Queen’s English are familiar to many. They presuppose that the monarch speaks in a way to be admired and emulated. Language obeys the laws of biology (to the extent that it depends on the production of sounds) and of society (since it is a means of communication) […]
by Anatoly Liberman Martin Chuzzlewit spent some time in America and, following the lead of his creator, Charles Dickens, formed a most unfavorable impression of the country. Soon after his arrival, he met the editors of the Watertoast Gazette, who were sure that Queen Victoria “[would] shake in her royal shoes” when she opened the […]
The shape of the word weather has changed little since it was first attested in the year 795. In Old English, it had d in place of th; the rest, if we ignore its present day spelling with ea, is the same. But its range of application has narrowed down to “condition of the atmosphere,” while at that time it also meant “air; sky; breeze; storm.”
By Anatoly Liberman
Those who look up the origin of a word in a dictionary are rarely interested in the sources of the information they find there. Nor do they realize how debatable most of this information is. Yet serious research stands behind even the controversial statements in a modern etymological dictionary.
by Anatoly Liberman Once out of school, we stop noticing the vagaries of English spelling and resign ourselves to the fact that rite, right, Wright (or wright in playwright), and write are homophones without being homographs. In most cases such words sounded different in the past, then changed their pronunciation, but retained their spelling. Such […]
This blog column has existed for a month. It was launched with the idea that it would attract questions and comments. If this happens, at the end of each month the rubric “Monthly Gleanings” will appear. Although in March I have not been swamped with the mail, there is enough for a full post. Also, one question was asked privately, but in connection with the blog, so that I think I may answer it here.
by Anatoly Liberman Modern English is swamped with words borrowed from other languages. One does not have to be a specialist to notice the presence of the Romance element in it or to guess that samovar has come from Russian and samurai, from Japanese. It is the details that, as usual, pose problems. Not only […]
by Anatoly Liberman Etymology has a place in the world because people want to know why a certain combination of sounds carries the meaning accepted by their community but, as a rule, have no clue to the answer. However, the degree of opacity differs from word to word. Compounds like newspaper and daredevil are more […]
by Anatoly Liberman The entries in the great Oxford English Dictionary (OED) reveal, although, naturally, in broad outline, the documented history of thousands of words. Some of them surfaced in texts more than a millennium ago, others emerged in Chaucer’s works and later, and still others were added to the vocabulary of English within the […]
There was a time when historical linguistics was one of the most prestigious disciplines in the humanities. At school, Latin and Classical Greek were shoved down young boys’ unwilling throats, and it seemed natural to look at languages with the eyes of a historian. Early in the 19th century, regular sound correspondences between languages were […]