Tag: Shakespeare
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Introducing Shakespeare Confidential
So, I’ve started a new yearlong project. Shakespeare died in 1616. I’m going to read everything he wrote in 2016 and write about it. I’m calling it Shakespeare Confidential. It’s going to be accessible, personal, and human, so don’t worry if Shakespeare feels Greek to you. You can find it – and follow it – at www.shakespeareconfidential.com and @bardconfidensh.…
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Home is where the haunt is
For word nerds, the real candy of Halloween is all the great words it gives out: werewolf, jack-o’-lantern, samhainophobia. But, as we so often see on this blog, sometimes it is the less unusual and more everyday word that can be the sweetest treat. Let’s have a look at just such a seasonal one: haunt. Its etymology really hits “home,” we might say. Haunt The word haunt has…
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the four seasons, part iv (winter)
Fast Mash Winter, attested in the same form in Old English around 888, comes through Proto-Germanic’s *wentruz, perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European’s *wed-, *wod, or *ud-, meaning “wet,” or *wind-, meaning “white” The early sense of winter, as one of the two major divisions of the year alongside summer, may have been the “rainy or wet season” or “the white season,”…
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bask
Fast Mash Bask comes from Old Norse, baðask (bathe oneself), with middle syllable lost The Scandinavian word joins baða (bathe) and reflexive verbal suffix –sk (self) Suffix –sk traces back to Proto-Indo-European *swe– (self) via Old Norse pronoun sik In 1300s, bask meant “to wallow/bathe,” but especially in blood; evolved to refer to “in sunshine” and metaphorical sunshine I took our…
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wreak havoc
Fast Mash Havoc comes from Anglo-Norman crier havok (cry havoc) Havok is from Old French havot (pillaging, plunder) Was a military signal for soliders to start plundering; first attested in English in late 14th-c. Wreak has been around for nearly 1300 years; early on, meant drive out and later, avenge Came to mean inflict destruction around early 1800s Probably ultimately related to Proto-Indo-European root, *werg-…
Mashed Radish 