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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Circus: Old English Thread
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
True, but the Saxons were wolves too, once, long before. Poor old England!
And anyway those who came to fight and win the land on the Day of Doom were not true French -- they were once men from the North (hence their name) like Danes, themselves. They came south with Rollo the Ganger, their great forefather, and set up like a French kind of Danelaw.
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
The weekend comes, and my wife and I hope to take out old, unwanted wares to the dump. We have not enough room for them. Who knew that a small flat would be harder to keep clean than a large house?
Also I will preach before the folk at church Sunday. (I am filling in for my friend Ed who will be at a large church meeting in Fort Worth.) Don't know what I will say yet. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) I am not following the list of readings, as I otherwise would, but will speak about the road to Emmaus.
- Worship has the Gospel (They spoke of what had happened in Jerusalem),
- it has understanding the words (Jesus made the words plain to them before they knew it was him),
- they ate with him (We see our Lord in the breaking of bread),
- and they went out and told others what they had seen.
Do you think that will preach?
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
I was also getting rid of some old things this weekend.
Everything went well. We took our old hardware to a shoppingtown far away, and the men there unloaded it for us and took it away, after a swear word about how much we had brought. As we were driving away, a "horse-less wain" drove in - much bigger than ours - and it was full up with dead hardware. I laughed. I wondered what the unloaders would say about that!
We then drove back to our own Shire (as we call it), and bought two books with the same name - something about "Deathly Hallows". I began reading one book, and my eldest daughter began reading the other. This was about midday Saturday. We read all afternoon and evening. She came to the end of the book about midnight. I had to read on through half the early morning before I came to the end of the book (well, I was asleep by four!) I thought it was good; I liked it.
This morning was church, but I was not the speaker. I put up the words of the songs on the overhead, so everyone could see them while they sang. And I looked after the offering, to see how much there was and write it all down after church had ended. We had a meeting after church to work out who would be the new leaders for the next three years. As everyone was of one mind (more or less), this meeting went smoothly, and we came home and rested from all our work.
Out (sorry to keep harping): large, preach - French, from Rome (unless you can find that either was also borrowed in Old English times - I haven't found them there yet, but I could well be wrong).
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Man, is this thread groovy or what.
This weekend I got stuck into the Deathly Hallows book, which was good. Not much else to tell, as it rained a lot so I did little else but sit and read, but the sun's been shining all day, and the waters are now where they should be, so I may have to go to work in the morning after all.
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
Oh, I like that opening line, Ariel!
This weekend just gone, I went with my husband to a great hall showing the life and thoughts of a man who won a war in this land; we thought deeply about this man and wondered at his life. Yesterday we walked around a lake, smirking (!!!) and talking with the men and women. We saw little boats made like swans, and men and women in them, pushing with their feet to make the boat go. We saw another temple, but only looked at the outside – I wanted to look at it since there was a shape of a man, made of bits of broken earthenware (of all hues). I had been collecting such bits of broken earthenware to make something the same at my house.
MSHB – I know that Shire! My mother-in-law, who lives in an old folks’ home in Sydney, thinks the Shire has the best strand in the world. (She went there when she was a girl.) Whenever we go to see her, she asks to go to that strand. Last year, my husband took her and they stayed at an inn hard by the strand – almost no other person was there – only my husband, my mother-in-law and the men-at-arms who keep the peace. We laughed that they must have thought my mother-in-law would make trouble!
I have found an on-line word-book – can you all tell?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I wanted to speak about making today's marshmallows. The stuff used to bind the sugars is not from the hoof of a beast, but rather from the inner part of the hide, which is scraped off before the hide is tanned. This same stuff is sometimes put into the lips (of a man or woman) to make them seem fuller and larger. I know not what its name is in the English tongue.
As for my weekend, I passed Saturday reading the last Harry Potter book, and today I went to church and came back home and have been laying about the house, doing pretty much nothing. Which suits me just swell.
[ 23. July 2007, 01:43: Message edited by: MouseThief ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I fear I have spoken wrongly. The stuff the marshmallow is made of is not the same stuff as that is put into lips -- but it is made from that stuff by cooking (one can learn about the way this is done, I think, on the world wide web by seeking on the word "marshmallow").
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HenryT
Canadian Anglican
# 3722
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Posted
An undertaking like to this thread is Uncleftish Beholding by Poul Anderson
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"Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned" P. Henry, 1788
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
Bother again! Another wrong post! Instead of:
quote:
This weekend just gone,
make it 'On the weekend...'.
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
stuff used sugars beast stuff larger passed(?) suits
Without a book on hand to look up these words, I am only guessing. But all these look French to me (not sure about when "pass" came into English). Some of them have been written about earlier in the thread, if you want some more feedback.
It is hard work keeping away from those bad French words. And King Alfred had no hot-water drink made with black leaves from the Far East, so he also had no need of a word for the sweetener to put in such a drink. Maybe he kept to mead and beer and wine. But did he have any strong apple-drink? I wonder. He could have had "Strong Bow", I guess, in "sweet", "draught" or "dry". I will have a draught one, thanks, if anyone is going shopping.
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
If King Alfred (or King Raedwald -- or anybody) was sick, I bet he had a hot-water drink made with leaves; if it was bitter, he could have honey to sweeten it. (And by the way -- honeycomb! to go with the other goodies.) I don't know what leaves grow in England to help sick people, though -- maybe hoarhound? (which weed grows where I live, too, and is good for colds.)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MSHB:
stuff used sugars beast larger passed(?) suits
You are right. None of these words came from Old English.
Stuff: This is from Middle English, and before that from the tongue spoken by those who won the kingship of England in 1044, and before that from the tongue which is kin to our own tongue, and which is spoken in that land on the great landmass east of England, between the land of the winners of the 1044 fight I spoke of before, and the many-great land of the overgreat king that reaches from there, over the great hills, and to the farthest seas of the east.
Use: Also Middle English from the tongue of the 1044 winners, but before that from the dead tongue once spoken in the land shaped like a boot, that is to say the land where the great church father, who is named the "bridge builder" in that tongue, lives in the well-known great-town of seven hills.
Sugar: likewise
Beast: likewise
Large: likewise
Pass: likewise
Suit: likewise
Shit, this is harder than it looks!
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bush baptist:
(And by the way -- honeycomb! to go with the other goodies.)
Mmm honeycomb. That King Alfred must have had a sweet tooth.
Looking forward ... this weekend: a fiftieth birthday get-together. And hopefully get some much needed sleep. Too much reading late at night last weekend.
And on Sunday a haircut after church. (Doesn't your church give haircuts?)
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MSHB: Member of the Shire Hobbit Brigade
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MSHB:
And on Sunday a haircut after church. (Doesn't your church give haircuts?)
That holds up on how long your priest speaks. I did not need a haircut when I came to church.
I lead worship tonight (Thor's Day, but we worship not Thor. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) ) for the elders who dwell in the block of flats where I also dwell. Many cannot get out to their own churches, so we bring it to them.
And on the weekend, my wife and I will once more go to help her friend carry her worldly goods to the new house (which is an old house, but no I won't go there...) She has prayed me that I help with her hardware which has been carried over, but is not yet set up.
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Shit
That you CAN say.
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Campbellite:
That holds up on how long your priest speaks. I did not need a haircut when I came to church.
In my church we have no priest or shepherd, for many of us take turns in speaking on Sunday (as I do at times), or in leading the singing, or blessing the bread and cup (as we do each Sunday). But I like the thought of someone's hair (or beard!) growing while a long-winded speaker holds forth. "I fell asleep for twenty years ... and he was still talking when I woke up!"
quote:
Originally posted by Campbellite:
She has prayed me that I help with her hardware which has been carried over, but is not yet set up.
Ah, another soul who is asked to set up other folk's hardware and software! When you know what to do with a keyboard and mouse, you sometimes find that you have many friends in need.
As for pray , you might look at the linked websheet. And if you turn "pray" into "carry" in that link, you might find another French word.
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
Ooh! I must keep that websheet. It is most helpful.
[ETA: "link" is from Old Norse.]
[ 27. July 2007, 03:56: Message edited by: Campbellite ]
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Campbellite:
Ooh! I must keep that websheet. It is most helpful.
[ETA: "link" is from Old Norse.]
And therefore we may write it, under the laws of the game - as Alaric said at the beginning of the thread.
See, it works like this. The Northmen ("Danes") came to England and settled there while Old English was spoken. Many of their words became part of the Old English tongue sometime from 800 to 1050 ... but the borrowed words mostly do not show up in English writings until Middle English times. But we know that these words did become English in Old English times, so they are all right. Any word borrowed in Old English times - as well as any word brought to England by the first English settlers - is good and may be written in this thread.
So if the word-book says that a word came from Old English or from the Northmen who settled in England ("Old Norse"), then you can write it here. You can also write words from Rome, if they were borrowed by the Old English. So words like church, bishop, plant, part, offering, devil, pope - are all right. As you can see, many of the words from Rome are church-words, which helps us when we talk about our weekends (though my church - and yours, I take it - happens to have no pope, bishop, or priest, other than the priesthood of all believers).
What am I doing this weekend? So far, I am writing on this thread. And I ate breakfast - oats and milk heated up, and then a hot drink made with water and beans - I think they call it "coughie", but I might have that wrong. The drink doesn't make me cough, but my shallow wit might make you choke.
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
As far as your hot drink light-heartedness goes (cough, cough) -- yes, I'm choking. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
But now I call to mind that the Good Book says, 'Like a madman with burning arrows is the one who says, I am only choking'. Oh dear.
All right, in earnest now:
quote:
But we know that these words did become English in Old English
I believe you, but how do we know? From the way speech works?
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
I am at the house of my wife's friend. This is to see if I got her hardware set up right. Here goes...
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
Ta dah!
Sadly her "call-up" is faster than my broadband. (I have a very old heap of hardware. The last foot is the slowest, let the reader understand.)
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
Home now, and see that I wrote a word that I should not. Rats!
It has been a long day, but much was done. We bought a new box for seeing far away things, with other costly hardware. I love spending the geld of others. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Campbellite:
Home now, and see that I wrote a word that I should not. Rats!
This is most unkind. Now I shall have to look though your post to find the word that shouldn't be there, and I'll be even later to bed than I might otherwise have been.
Our weekend has been fairly dull. Early in the day, before the sun was hot, I went outside and worked in the yard, turning over the soil and taking out the bindweed roots. Bindweed is an evil weed which puts down roots everywhere it can. The roots run along under the ground, and then a plant will grow up from the underground roots, and send even more roots out.
The only way to be rid of bindweed is to take the roots from the soil, using a shovel to turn over the soil and get down to a depth where there are no more roots. You pull the roots out of the soil, and set them somewhere where the sun will dry them to death, more or less. It is a slow and dull kind of work, and filthy too. But it feels good to know I'm getting this work done.
My wife went to a christening today, the christened child being the son of a husband and wife who go to our church. I stayed home with our youngest son, and the two of us went and bought food, and also two glass cups for that far eastern drink made from hot water and broken leaves, which as yet has no name in our English tongue.
I drink a lot of this drink, and I like to drink from a cup made of glass much more than I like to drink from a cup made of clay. The heat goes through the clay more readily than through the glass, and therefore burns my lips (I'm truly a lightweight when it comes to things that burn my lips). My son the teen said he would keep the dishes clean (such was the deal we made with him at the beginning of the summer) and the dishwasher empty, but he has not been keeping the dishes washed as he said he would, so we keep running out of clean glass mugs. Thus my buying two more.
In the evening, after we ate, we sat at the table and talked with folks from far away, using the hardware that everyone here already knows and has spoken of but which of yet has no other name in our English tongue (at least none that I know of).
And now I shall go to bed, and wish you all a most blessed day tomorrow, the day of our Lord.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I've not done much this weekend other than read books (one of them is the "Deathly Hallows", again). Last night I got my hardware to give me some drawings of Oxenford that I can send to friends and the folk of my household. I didn't draw these myself, they were taken with one of those small silver boxes that does drawings for you. They came out well, but in some of them, there's a weird yellow glowing ball in the sky, and the sky is blue instead of grey. But I think folk will like them in spite of this oddness.
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
post soil (times 4) stayed mugs
MouseThief has chosen his name well - an Old English name indeed. And a long tale well written. But a few thoughts...
"post" is a worrying word. As a stick in the ground, it does indeed come from Old English. To send a word or writing to others - as a fighter might send a warning to his fellow fighters, - it comes from French. So my books tell me. But might we not put a warning on a stick planted in the ground, so others can read it? And is that not "posting" a warning? Ah, it is a worry. My hard heart would say "no" to this word.
"soil" is a filthy French word for a filthy thing. Call it "earth" and we will hear you.
"stayed" is another of those worrying words. "Stay" as a rope to hold up a ship's mast is truly from Old English. But when it means "to be somewhere for a while" or "not to leave", then it comes from French. And what makes it more of a worry: a ship's "stay" had better "not leave" but "be there for a while", else the mast will fall down. It is hard when one word is in truth two words that look the same, but one comes from Old English and the other from French. This makes the game tougher. (And we thought it would be all sweetness and light to play this game!)
"mug" is another worry. It is found in the Old Danish, but not in Middle English - it only shows up in English in the 1500s, which is later than the other words we borrowed from the Danes. Did it come from the Danes who settled England before the French came? We don't know. But I cannot say it is wrong - nor can I say it is right. Too hard to call!
But I am learning heaps while I look up these words to find out if they are lawful in this game.
C - was your "Rats" spoken of "very"? Truly a French word. But this reader did not understand your bit about "the last foot". Am I being too thick?
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
blue
So near! But is it near enough?
"Blue" comes from French (bleu), while Old English had the word "blaw", "blaew" (which might have become "blow" or "blew" today). So it is one of those worrying words where French and English were almost the same ...but we took up the French word and dropped the Old English. Sigh.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Hell's bells ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) I feel as if my tongue is weighted with lead in trying to speak the speech of the Northmen, and I can't have a good swear either. It is still a good game though.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
"Rats" is not my word. Campbellite wrote that word. I wrote what he had written, so I could write about it myself.
I think what you say about "blue" makes the game too hard. What we took from the French was not the word itself, but the way it is written. The two tongues each had this word; what was not alike was the way they were written. If we must write our words the way they were written before 1050, none of us could read what each other had written! All that "sumer is icumen in" silliness gives me a headache. And that's only middle English! (I'm sorry I said "written" so many times in this bit, but I didn't want to think of another way to say it over and over -- my mother always said I don't work hard enough in life, and she (as ever) spoke soothly. If there is a light way and a heavy way to do something, I will choose the light way every time.)
I fear you are right about "post". It seems so old and English a word, but -- oh how it smarts to say it! -- it is not from Old English.
Likewise for "soil". But here the "oi" should have given it away. Bad thinking by me.
It's a ticklish part of this game that sometimes, when you're looking up the word in the word-book, you see the word you're looking for, but don't see that it's not used there the same way that you have used it. So it might be that you have used the word for a doing, but they have used it for a thing. Or the other way about. As you said, it's like there are two words, but they're written the same, so we think of them as the same word. It does make the game much harder.
Mug I didn't even look up. Dumb, dumb, dumb! If I had, I would have seen that my wordbook says we don't know where it came from. You must have a better wordbook than I do. Or they don't know either, but are saying what they think is so, even though they don't know it in sooth. They want us to think they are so smart, but they oft don't know any more than we do! Pricks.
Anyway I woke early today and couldn't get back to sleep, so here I am writing to you.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bush baptist:
quote:
But we know that these words did become English in Old English
I believe you, but how do we know? From the way speech works?
This is a hard one to answer. I was writing what a learned man says in one of his books. So why might he say that?
- the Danes settled in (north-east) England between 800 and 1050
- the last Danish king of England (Harthacanute) died in 1042
- when the French came, they cut off England's links with Denmark and turned England towards the French
- Danish words had to be borrowed while Danish folk in England were still speaking Danish (the likelihood of this lessens as time goes on)
- about 150 Danish words do show up in Old English writings
- it seems that a half-Danish, half-English mongrel tongue, a kind of go-between tongue, may have been spoken between the English and Danish in north England in Old English times
- the northern English tongue in Old English times shows the marks of such a mongrel tongue - such as, the loss of word endings much sooner than in the south where Danes did not settle
- writings on stone in the north shows that folk with Danish names were already speaking English before the French came
- English was most likely to borrow Danish words when Danish speakers were many and mighty in the land
- the French killed many many folk in the north after they came (the Harrowing of the North) - this would likely have broken up any Danish-speaking towns too
- would Danes settling in England keep speaking Danish for more than 250 years - that is, until after the French came?
- late Old English writings were mostly written in the southern kind of Old English, so northern words borrowed from Danish were less likely to be written in Old English times
- I think the borrowed Danish words were spoken in later English like words borrowed before Middle English, rather than like words borrowed after the French came
These are my thoughts on why the Danish words came into English before the French came. We can see from the above that they came into England before the French came.
I haven't been thinking about this all weekend. But a litte bit of the time.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Ariel: it is hard to swear using only words that were in Old English! I wonder why so many of our cuss words are so new? We know that the French winners of the well-known 1066 fight looked down upon our English tongue (twits!), calling it "low" and other such words (mostly in their filthy, stuck-up French tongue, I don't wonder). But still, our forebears must have had some way to cuss? Some words that even then were used with heat when one wanted to say something "naughty"? Nevertheless it looks like none of them have come down to us today, or achingly few. Not to be too mean, but you could say "prick" (as I did above), "ass", or "cocksucker". "Bitch" and "shithead" also come from good English stock. I can't think of any more, but somebody else will come along and help us, I know.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Mouethief, those seven words that those who live beyond the western sea may not say on the far-speaking-thing are all English.
And think how much harder it would be to use no words with English roots.!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
"Rats" is not my word. Campbellite wrote that word. I wrote what he had written, so I could write about it myself.
I knew it was Campbellite - I was writing to him, not you! That is why I wrote "C" beforehand. I should have written "Campbellite" in full. Sorry I misled you.
About "blue" - I don't think they (the French and the Old English words) were spoken altogether the same. But still, hard to call. All my books say "blue" is from French, while also saying that there was an English "sister-word" to "blue". What do your books say?
I don't want to write Old (or Middle) English here either, much as I like "sumer is icumen in". Where we can write in new-fangled ways with words from Old English times, I'll do so. That's why we have "keyboard" and "cool, man!" Though I do like to think of King Alfred saying the latter while writing with the former, seeing that the words (key, board, cool, man) were all there in his day.
At the end of the day: how do we play the game while keeping to the laws of the game? Where do we draw the mark that we cannot step over? I do think it is hard to tell sometimes - not all words are straightforwardly English or French, as you can see. I keep to words I know about, or look them up and only write them if I think I can fight for them when someone else says "no". But if your books say "Old English" or "Old Norse" for some word, then that is good enough. But be careful of words like "sound": Old English if it means "healthy" or "a body of water between two lands"; but Old French if it means "something you hear". They are not the same word.
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MSHB: Member of the Shire Hobbit Brigade
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Ariel: it is hard to swear using only words that were in Old English! I wonder why so many of our cuss words are so new? We know that the French winners of the well-known 1066 fight looked down upon our English tongue (twits!), calling it "low" and other such words (mostly in their filthy, stuck-up French tongue, I don't wonder). But still, our forebears must have had some way to cuss? Some words that even then were used with heat when one wanted to say something "naughty"? Nevertheless it looks like none of them have come down to us today, or achingly few. Not to be too mean, but you could say "prick" (as I did above), "ass", or "cocksucker". "Bitch" and "shithead" also come from good English stock. I can't think of any more, but somebody else will come along and help us, I know.
I know of others, but I am not the one to write them. Some words are still banned from writing in books and saying on the wireless.
I liked your words "achingly few". And I do like how you write so much good English of today without breaking the laws of the game. Well, other than "using".
By the way, some book I read said that we have lost about four-fifths of the words that were around in Old English times. When I look at an Old English word book, I can see that such a big loss did happen. I guess that holds true for swear words too.
In some tongues, folk swear by the gods, and by the blessed this or that - churchy words, rather than words for body parts or "sleeping" with someone. Maybe the Old English swore like that?
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MSHB:
In some tongues, folk swear by the gods, and by the blessed this or that - churchy words, rather than words for body parts or "sleeping" with someone. Maybe the Old English swore like that?
By Our Lady and God's Blood, so they did.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MSHB:
C - was your "Rats" spoken of "very"? Truly a French word. But this reader did not understand your bit about "the last foot". Am I being too thick?
Too late I knew that the word "very" was from the French. Caught it after I could make it right.
"The last foot" means that the bits I get from the net come fast, but the last foot (inside my hardware box) goes slowly. I have heard that this is true of many older hardware boxes.
And about swear words, in the New World where Mousethief and I dwell, swear words are oftimes called "Anglo-Saxonisms". Odd that so few are, it seems. It is not much of a swear word, but I have found that "snot" can be written in this game.
[speeling]
[ 30. July 2007, 04:37: Message edited by: Campbellite ]
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
Posts: 12001 | From: between keyboard and chair | Registered: Aug 2001
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Campbellite:
"The last foot" means that the bits I get from the net come fast, but the last foot (inside my hardware box) goes slowly. I have heard that this is true of many older hardware boxes.
Ah, now I understand what you mean.
I thought you were talking about the wire from your network gateway to your hardware box. In my house they are only about a foot away from each other. That's what I was thinking of as "the last foot". And I couldn't work out why it would be slow. Home network wires (and wireless links) are much faster than broadband.
But yes, the chips in old hardware are slo-o-ow.
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
It came to me that my hardware is older than I thought. It is at least four years old, and as has been said, it grows slow. I have been hoarding my farthings so as to buy a new one. I hope in time for Christmas.
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Mouethief, those seven words that those who live beyond the western sea may not say on the far-speaking-thing are all English.
Ah, but are they old English? My wordbook says no.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
My tired old brain couldn't come up with the "seven words that can't be said on the wireless" on its own (and believe me, I spoke to it rather sternly), so I went and looked them up on the world wide web. I will write them with stars, so as not to tread upon the toes of any who might find the sight of them written in full a little too much for this kind of thread.
sh*t -- this is from good old English stock. No need to bring in a word from some other tongue when you've got one that works as well and as tirelessly as this poor old drafthorse. Oops! Bad horse! Road apples.
p*ss -- my wordbook says this is from French.
f*ck -- there is a lengthy tale to tell about this one! My wordbook says this is middle English, and thence from "Germanic" roots. "What in the hell does that mean?" I hear you say. (Hell, by the bye, is old English.) The wordbook goes on to say that it is akin to thus-and-such words in other tongues. But if it were from old English, the wordbook would have said so. So I have to say this one is right out.
c*nt -- this one took the same path as the one before. As far as this thread goes, this one is a goner. In the box now is Smith, just brought up from the AAA team this last week, where he was batting .370 against right-handed pitchers in night games on weekends when the moon is full. And here's the first pitch, a fastball from the young lefty Everson. And it's ... swung on and belted, deep to left field! The left fielder Hartman is up against the wall, but all he can do is watch this one fly away. That will send Green home as well, and now the game is tied at 2 all, and we'll be back after these few words.
c*cks*ckr -- you may write this word on this thread as often as you like. Then again, you don't have to write it if you don't want to, but that should go without saying (and don't you wish it had?).
m*th*rf*ckr -- as you can see, this word has one of the earlier words in it, and since that word is not from old English, this one can't be written here either.
t*ts -- what do you know, this is from old English too! Our forebears must have liked a little bit of good clean fun themselves, eh? Yes, I knew you would.
And now, for you and you alone, something I have never offered to any other buyer: for no more than you would spend for seven words, I will throw in not two, not three, but ONE free (eighth) word, which is yours to keep even if you choose not to take the first seven:
tw*t -- my wordbook says this word's roots are unknown. (I didn't say it would be a good free word!)
And now I shall leave off, and let wiser heads sift through what I've written for words that don't belong.
[ 31. July 2007, 06:49: Message edited by: MouseThief ]
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
****
I believe your fourth word is from Old English, but from what I have read, all the others are as you have said.
The fourth word is found written (but only once) in an Old English work, and is also found in all the nearest tongues to English (that is, all the North Sea tongues from the Netherlands to Denmark and beyond, which are the lands that the English themselves came from). It seems to me likely, then, that the English brought it with them.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
NUTS! NUTS NUTS NUTS NUTS NUTS!
"just" is not OE. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
So if you would be so kind, strike out this:
just brought up from the AAA team this last week
and instead read this:
who this past Thursday was brought up from the AAA team
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
I think this gives new meaning to Mousethief being at a loss for words.
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
Posts: 12001 | From: between keyboard and chair | Registered: Aug 2001
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
I must ask.
May we make up new words from the Old English root words to speak of things which were not in the earlier days? I have in minds putting together far+speaker = farspeaker in stead of "the thing by which you can speak to a person far away". One could also in this way make Farseer or other words. Would this work within the game's canon?
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Works for me. I think you should write it with the little - mark, however, like this: far-seer.
And "loss for words"? As if. If you don't mind me blowing my own horn (indeed, even if you do), my home-run play-by-play -- with, even, a dumb aside about the batter's silly numbers -- was one of my shining whatsits on this thread. One stray non-old-English word hardly makes for "at a loss for words".
An aside: I wonder why are there no old English words for bits of time smaller than a day?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
An aside: I wonder why are there no old English words for bits of time smaller than a day?
I would think, though I could be wrong, that words for smaller bits of time were not needed. Times of day like "morning" or "afternoon" or "evening" were near enough.
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Were there no monks in pre-1066 England? Did those monks not have names for the set times of the day at which they gathered? That doesn't strike me as too likely. I can't hear them saying, "Let us go to the church for mid-mornings." Though I'd be willing to put money on those words having come into English straight from Latin before 1066 (as did the monks).
[ 01. August 2007, 14:38: Message edited by: MouseThief ]
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Were there no monks in pre-1066 England? Did those monks not have names for the set times of the day at which they gathered?
Of course, but they were words from the Romish tongue, and the things they did in church were also in that tongue. In those days, the time of day might sometimes be marked off with the help of a burning candle with marks set evenly all the way up it, then they would know when to ring a bell to call the monks to church. They would not have had much use for half or quarter of a candle mark. What they did in church took much longer than it does now, and other work also, because they didn't have hardware as we know it or the other things that make work so much faster (or are said to make work faster, that is, when they feel like working at all and don't break down and throw up tidings of woe).
[ 01. August 2007, 17:36: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
It could be done in English, with "while". But it was rare and strange.
In Spring the sun rises at the sixth while of the morn.
I think we can have time and tide ,
day and night ,
week month and year ,
sennight and fortnight
midnight and midday (but not the N word which came here with the holy brothers)
dawn and dusk
morn and even, morning and evening
sunrise, sunset, cock-crow, and first light
while, and when and whenever
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Were there no monks in pre-1066 England? Did those monks not have names for the set times of the day at which they gathered?
Of course, but they were words from the Romish tongue, and the things they did in church were also in that tongue.
What, then, is meant by "Old English"? If a word came into English from the Romish tongue, but came in before Old English had turned into Middle English, is that not Old English? Or are we going to say that for a word to be Old English, it must not only have been spoken in England before 1054, but it must have come before that from Old High D-Landish? Then we are not truly looking for Old English words at all, are we? We're looking for OHD words that also made it into Old English. We could push it back further than that, too, I'm sure. But let's not get silly.
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