“Anglish”

@AnWulf, Stanmund: "tantrum
1714, originally colloquial, of unknown origin."

The word TANTRUM might have Gaelic roots (English borrowed it from the Scotish-Gaelic I believe) >> Gaelic deann/teann "violence, haste" + Gaelic trom "heavy" = t(e)an(n)trom > tantrum.

DOLDRUMS might also be borrowed from the Gaelic > Doltrum > dall "blind, dull, dark, ignorant" + trom "heavy"; maybe also Gaelic dol(as) "grief, woe" (from L. tolerare) + trom "heavy" = "heavy grief"

@Jayles ... I think see where the problem is! I'm still working this thru. As you have point out before, in English, word order matters.

Jill comes home and says, "Jane screwed up again."
Bob says, "What are you going to do about it."
Jill, "What can I do besides complain?"

Complaining does not work here! ... UNLESS you throw in a time modifier to betoken an ongoing action ... and maybe a comma to betoken a pause. Even then it still sounds awkward.

"What can I do, besides complaining all the time?"

But if you put it up front, "Besides complaining, what can I do?" Then it fits. I think that the "all the time" is implied when it is up front because now it is a continuous or multiple action. When it is at the end, it is a one time deed.

As for betold, in that case, I need to hold back betold for bezahlen! lol ... I think beteld, betild, and betolden works.

Oct. 14 ... The Battle of Senlac Ridge (Hastings) ... Anyone mark by "Talk Like a Saxon"? :) http://lupussolus.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/talk-like-a-saxon.html

@AnWulf: "English, at its heart and roots, is a Germanic tung. However, this was changed nearly a thousand years ago in the year 1066..."

The heart and roots of English were not warped 1000 years thence. English today is still a Teutonic tongue with Latin/Greek word borrowings, and West Germanic/Scandinavian stæfcræft.

I would say English was ripped open by the lucky Normans, and word borrowings were thrust upon the tongue. The folks still spoke English, and happened to learn Latin-French words from the new overlords.

What say you?

@Ængelfolc ... Yes, I could have written that better. How about this:

English, at its heart and roots, is a Germanic tung. However, it was forever altered on that fateful day nearly a thousand years ago in the year 1066 ...

In Anglish:
However, this was forever changed on that wanweird day nearly a thousand years ago in the year 1066

Mark:
change is of Celtic upspring.
wanweird = unfortunate ... wan = lacking; weird = fate/fortune/destiny

On another note, I've dug up some old words and meanings:

bewry - to cover, hide, conceal, clothe, protect ... was a strong verb in OE and ME but by 1599 it was brooked as a week verb. (I've alreddy brooked it today!)

beclap - trap or grab suddenly, catch ...

latch = catch; many of the meanings of latch were taken by catch ... even the conjugation! It was latch, laught, laught ... It was catch, catched, catched but the verb changed to match laught ... thus caught! Not only was the word swapped but also the conjugations! (However snatch seems to be a loanword and weak.)

ppl. laught, as noun: rapine, prey

outwrite - transcribe
bewrite - had describe and copy listed as meanings ... copy, I found an upspring for but I can't find one for it being brooked as describe tho it is kind of like Ger. beschrieben.

gainstand - oppose, resist ... to stand against

foredeal - advantage
afterdeal - disadvantage

So it goes, I add words every day.

I wrote another blog today ... "Dived agin Dove" ... and slipped in a few more words ... bit by bit, word by word ...

intentional >>> willful
pejorative >>> ???
introspective >> inward-looking
Q: is "headstrong" pejorative or not???

advantage >>> upside,
disadvantage >>> downside, drawbacks

@Jayles, if you're asking if "headstrong" = pejorative, I'd say no. If you're asking if if the word "headstrong" is pejorative, again, I'd say no.

If you're looking for a word for pejorative itself, I think "slight" might fit. I tried to see if "hosp" or any of its sibblings made thru but alas, they all seemed to have died out in ME.

hosp m. reproach, insult, contumely, blasphemy
hospcwide m. insulting speech
hospettan to ridicule
hospspǣc f. jeer, taunt
hospul contemptible
hospword n. abusive language, contemptuous expression

Same thing with fraced, fraceð, fracod, fracoð unless you believe fraced is the root of frak, frack as on Battlestar Galactica! lol

BTW, after a lot of debate, the folks at wiktionary decided to add qapla' for success. Can I do any less?

Maybe upside and downside would fit here ... maybe not:

"And thus the battle was great, and oftsides that one party was at a fordeal and anon at an afterdeal, which endured so long till at the last King Arthur espied where Lucius the Emperor fought, and did wonder with his own hands.” -- Le Morte Darthur

was at a fordeal >>> had the upperhand?? held sway??
was at an afterdeal >>> had lost the upperhand??
Thanks for "slighting" -- pejorative

Well, it seems that fraked and frakel did make it past Middle English:

fraked (adj) - Evil, wicked.
frakel (n, adj, and adv) - Vile, foul, wretched, worthless ... this frakel world.

Oh, and there was a typo in an early list ... it was hospræc. I had left out the 'r'.

SPREAD THE WORD: woodwose / wahlstod / sinflood

'woodwose' - (faun)

If needed, could someone kindly eke 'woodwose' as the bypell for 'faun' on Anglish Moot /The wild man (also wildman, or "wildman of the woods", archaically woodwose or wodewose/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_man

Believed from Old English: 'wudu-wása' also lives in sundry lastnames like: wodehouse, woodhouse, woodiwiss, wudwas, and so forth...http://www.archive.org/stream/surnames00week/surnames00week_djvu.txt

It's not enough that there is already stuff like greenman, wildman and suchlike, the '-wose' ending is bewitching and one-of-a-kind. 'wodwos' in Gawain and the Green night, and 'the woses' in Tolkien's LOTR. Tinkered on More Words http://www.morewords.com/ but doesn't seem any kindred wordstuff for the 'wose' bit. There's the near-ago slang word 'wuss' but even if it's got roots in a warm furry thing, the whimp+pussy/effeminate man meaning seems most unwoodwoseilike. That seems to leave 'woozy' (feeling oozy from drink) and 'woosie' a kind of pet form/call said to sweet furry cats. Anyway, maybe our furry friends the woodwoses might also have kin in moorlands called: moorwose/moorwiss - maybe that's how the 'morris dancers' got their name (?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_man

'wahlstod' - (interpreter)

Said to be Old English for 'interpreter' makes sense as 'wahlstod' (welshstood / welsh-understander?) also seems to of gone on to be the name of a mate/manthrall/interpreter(?) of Hallowed Bead. Haps back then 'wahlstod' meant: the Welsh understood/stander, and Saint Dunstan: the Dane understood/stander?
Dunstand / Walstood
Dunstod /Walstan
Anyway, what would be the spelling of 'wahlstod' ( interpreter) in English now days?

http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/10/be-very-quiet-i-am-hunting-tolkienian.html

'sinflood' - (appocaplyspe)? (or as a prefix i.e sinbless, sinbliss, sinsinge, sincindersinge)?

'sündflut' German word for 'deluge' 'biblical flood' the meaningness of the word 'sinflood' gets broken down here: http://www.archive.org/stream/significantetymo00mitcuoft/significantetymo00mitcuoft_djvu.txt and here: http://www.myhistorybooks.org/categories.php?categoryno=20900&pageno=57 and how here: http://books.google.com/books?id=8vqm1zozD18C&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=%22sin+flood%22+etymology&source=bl&ots=JA9gov4649&sig=1g6Ahi_SDn2zmHmV6md9Fhnocuk&hl=en&ei=n9ycTv2NE5S28QPtvrGbCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22sin%20flood%22%20etymology&f=false how 'sündflut' is a mismeaning from a German dance hight 'sint-vluot'

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintflut

*welsh = foreigner/Briton/Welsman/Latin/unGermanic etc...*

/Bead is well read in Latin and his underling is walestod in the understooding of matters Celtic.../

@Stanmund ...

wealhstod m. interpreter, translator, mediator (wealhstôd) ... also weal-staðel (weal-stathel).

If you want to use it for an interpreter, what's wrong with using it as is or maybe without the 'h' ... wealstod ... the stôd would probably be stood nowadays but truly not needed.

The biggest mistakes that I see in the Anglish community are:
1. Lack of knowledge of other words that already there; or lack of knowledge of OE words that could be edquickened ... and thus they jump to making up new words or using some slang term.
2. Those who do know some OE words, get all wrapped "umbe the axle" about "updating" the spelling and often make some wild guesses.

Wealhstod made into ME as wealhstod ... that's good enuff for me. ME also had weal-stathel ... so if you want to drop the 'h', then that works as well.

First, ask yourself why you do you want to change the spelling? Is there a reason to change the spelling? How does changing the spelling help with the brooking the word? Does help or muddle the etymology? Do you want to keep the way it was said (or something near to it) by the Saxons?

For byspel, if the OE word for paper is bumoga (I made that up), then why not take the word as it is? Why try to "update it"?

There will be times when you will need to think about the spelling but don't out of your way unless it is truly needed to do so.

@Standmund ... You need to tell us why you're looking for a word for the Flood. Sometimes your posts are don't have any lead-in so it's like you started talking to us in mid-thought as if we know what and why you're doing.

AFAIK, if you write the Flood (big F), folks know that you're talking about the biblical flood.

If you're looking for another word for deluge, then there is flood and spate. If talking about heavy rain, then use heavy rain, downpour, or squall.

Anwulf: so those of us who do not know OE are unworthy???

Is "hosp" or "frack" still in German?? I can't seem to come up with it

@Jayles ... No, I didn't say that. However, there are sundry online OE translators that anyone without an inkling of OE could at least check for a word before jumping to making up new words. There are online ME sites that can help to see how the word might have changed in ME ... or if it even made to ME ... or to see what new words might have slipped into English that aren't Latinates. I'm trying to chase one down now ... shiden (v) to cut/separate ... from Du/Ger (scheiden). I'm trying to see how it was conjugated ... the ppl is listed as shide (but the simple past isn't listed). There was a noun cognate in OE scīd ... but no verb that I see. I think it can be brooked for separate but I'm not reddy to jump to that yet.

I don't want to stop anyone from looking for other words for the Latinates. But if you're going to list it on a site like the Anglish Wiki ... work thru it first. There is a forum there to talk about it ... Some folks have listed an Latinate for a Latinate! They didn't even take the time to check the etymology. Too many have just thrown out words ... which is fine on the forum, but not on the list. Only in the past month or so have I noticed that someone is cleaning up the board.

Just today I saw comment that "abut" should be removed because it came from French. That much is true, however, it has a Germanic root. You could form the same word from the English forefast a- + butt with the same meaning.

I love it that folks are helping out and working on this. Just work it thru first. There is a forum ... not brooked much ... but it's there. This is a better forum than what is there but it is what it is. Here, you can throw out what you want and see what folks think. But we're not making a list here for others to brook.

However the wiki is doing that ... which is a good thing IF the folks work thru the words before putting them on the list. If someone has qualms about a word ... put it on the forum first. Someone will, sooner or later, answer it. If someone can back up the word with an etymology, then put it out to be brooked.

AND ... if you can back it up ... you can put on wiktionary so that anyone trying to look up the meaning will find it. If you can't back it up, the wiktionary admin folks will take it off.

All I'm saying, in a lot of words, is that if you want to take it mainstream, you must do your homework.

I don't know the etym of fraked/frakel beyond OE. Ængelfolc might have that.

I can tell you that fraked and frakel are in the century-dictionary.

Hosp as the following etym.:

From Proto-Germanic *huspaz (“derision, mockery”), from Proto-Germanic base *hut-, *hūt- (“to be naughty, be impudent”), from Proto-Indo-European *kūd- (“to mock”). Related to Old English hyspan (“to mock, scorn, deride”), Old English hūsc (“mockery, derision, scorn, insult”), Old High German hosc (“vilification, ridicule, scorn”).

Maybe Ængelfolc can chase it down from OHG hosc to see if there is a nowadays German word with that root.

Maybe German Hohn, verhöhnen? for hosp .. hosc ... Just a guess.

@AnWulf: "I'm trying to chase one down now ... shiden (v) to cut/separate ... from Du/Ger (scheiden). I'm trying to see how it was conjugated ... "

Old English sceādan (sceādan), scādan "to cut, divide" < P.Gmc. *skaithanan (cf. Goth, skáiđan, OS. skēdan, skēđan, OHG. sceidan, German scheiden* (small 's' please*)

Sceādan > Present: ic sceāde, þū sceādst, hē sceādþ, wē sceādaþ, gē sceādaþ
hīo sceādaþ; Past: ic sceēd; sceēd, þū sceēde; sceēde, hē sceēd; sceēd, wē sceēdon; sceēdon, gē sceēdon; sceēdon, hīo sceēdon; sceēdon

Scādan > Present: ic scāde, þū scādst, hē scādþ, wē scādaþ, gē scādaþ, hīo scādaþ; Past: ic scēd, þū scēde, hē scēd, wē scēdon, gē scēdon, hīo scēdon

English has its words SHED and SHEATH from this Old English word.

Oh, and sh*t(e) is from the PGmc root, too! ;-)

"Oh, and sh*t(e... " so THAT's what the garden shed is for.....

Here is the ME entry:
shīden (v.) P.ppl. shīde
[From shīd(e n. or MDu. schiden to cleave; cp. MHG schiden to separate.]

(a) To divide (sth.); ppl. shide as adj., of peas: separated from the pod, shelled; -- ?error for shilled, p.ppl. of shillen v.(2); (b) to shed (tears); -- ?error for sheden v.

Shide [Monson: Schylled] peyse - shelled peas ... according to the above, this could be a mistake for shilled.

It might have been made from the noun shide or from MDu schiden. For all I know, it could a dialectal word for sheden! The meanings are almost twins and there sundry conjugations for sheden. The examples for shiden bewry about 125 years so the word was brooked for some time but there are no written byspels of the simple past.

Byspels from other works that are likely also mistakes or with a totally different meaning:

2. Verily this realm's children (shall) be out-cast in(to) the outei-

3. forsotlie the sonys of the rewme shiden be cast out into vttre-

---

Also whanne rightful construccioun is lettid bi relacion, I resolue it openli, thus, where this reesoun, Dominum forbid-abunt adversarij ejus, should be Englisshid thus bi the lettre, the Lorde his aducrsaries shiden drede, I Englishe it thus bi resolucioun, the aduersaries of the Lord shiden drede him.

---

So, for now, I think I'm going to call it a variant of sheden. Sheden has many sundry meanings ... more than we give it today:

To divide (people, things); separate (sb. or oneself from sb. or sth., sth. from sth.)
To depart, leave; separate; separate from each other, part company.
To disperse (sth.), spread, extend; distribute (sth.), carry, convey
To pour (sth.), pour out, pour forth
~ oute; ppl. shed as adj.: spilled; (f) to discharge (a vessel) of its contents, empty; also fig.; ~ oute; (g) ~ oute, to draw (a sword)
~ bitwix, to discern between (two things), distinguish between.
"ben shed", be set apart; also, of a circle: be separate, be different; also, of a virtue: be distinct; ppl. shed, set apart, sent out

Many choices for the ppl. shēd(e, shedde(n, shād, shadde(n, shat, sād, chāde, xad, (SW) ssedde, (chiefly N) scēd(e, (early) shēden & shēded, shedded

So ... can it be brooked for different, separate, distinct?

The separate/different parts:
The shed parts.
The shedded parts.
The shedden parts.
The sheden parts.
Or ... from shiden ... The shide parts.

Cast your vote for which one you like the best.

I should point out that I like to brook sunder for separate. Thus, the sunder parts.

sunder = apart, different(ly), private, separate, special ... and was brooked as such in OE and ME ... and likely much later.

~ roune [cp. OE sundorrununge], secret conversation, private communication; ~ speche [cp. OE sundorspræc], a private conversation; (d) as noun, in phrase: from ~, apart [cp. asonder adv., insonder adv., onsonder adv.]

I often brook the hyphen just so as not to bewilder those with the kenning:

private conversation - sunder-talk (see above)
private property -sunder-land (OE sundorland n. land set apart, private property)
special gift (privilege) - sunder-gift (OE sundorgifu)
special knowledge -sunder-couth (sundorcýððu f. special knowledge)
special mass - sunder-mass (OE sundormæsse f. separate mass, special mass)
special quality - sunder-kind (sundorgecynd n. special quality)
special right, privilege - sunder-right (OE sundorriht n. special right, privilege)
special seat, throne - sunder-seld, sunder-seat (OE sundorseld n. special seat, throne.)
special skill, power - sunder-craft, sunder-power (sundorcræft m. special power or capacity.)
specially wise - sunder-wise (OE sundorwîs specially wise)
and more!

@AnWulf:

SHELL, SHEATH, SHED, asf., all have the same root, as do O.E. shīde(n), sceādan, scādan, MDu. schiden, MHG schiden, German scheiden, asf.

Forgive me for venting here before I get to my ord (point) ... I was just on the Anglish wiki site ... I saw this put forth for "clear" ... sweetle (< OE sweotol).

Good thought ... good start ... but didn't follow thru and do the homework ... and jumped to some odd word twisting. I can see what he did ... He has the, IMO, not well grounded belief that 'eo' = 'ee' and then swapped 'le' for 'ol'.

The truth is that sweotol is only one spelling ... there were sundry others but sweotol is often the headword:

sweotol, swutol, switol, swytol, sutol (-ul, -al, -el); adj. Plain, manifest, evident, clear, patent

Next, the word made it to ME as swutel (early), sutel, and sotel (late) ... and the verb forms sutelen, swutelen, and even sotelen.

Sutel seems to be the most brooked and is the headword in ME. Do you think it is too close to "subtle"? Say the 'u' more like 'oo' ... sootel? Or should swutel or sotel be edquickened instead?

My wandering thought for the day.

@Stanmund ... BTW, the word "wode" has sundry sunder meanings. It takes up a few sheets to bewry all them ... but among the meanings are crazy, mad:

"Do way youre threpyng! ar ye wode?" ... (threap/threpe is a great word that is still in the wordbook as well)

Wode also still in the wordbook tho sometimes it (mistakenly in my thoughts) refers to "wood"; it was one of the spellings but not one that I would brook. Spellings in ME were kind of crazy with different words often being spelled the way. One place might say it and spell it as wood while another place as woed. In ME wode was also wodde, woed, woide, & (early) woð, (gen.) wodes, asf.

And yes, among the meanings is "wild"or "untamed":

Sche knewe wele þat wode oxen were wylde and vntame.

Today's wordbook only has a few of the sundry meanings ... Mad; insane; possessed; rabid; furious; frantic.

It's a good word! I'd like to see some of the old meanings edquickened.

So: twice-wed, twice-sundered?

Maybe twice-wed ... twice-asundered?

"Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder."

Here's a good one I found today:

without threap ~ without argument; without opposition

I've been looking for a way to say something like "no doubt" ... I think this fits in nicely ... "without threap".

Here's another good one that I brooked today on another thread: wite = blame (both noun and verb).

Tho that I be jealous, wite me not. - Chaucer

There if that I misspeak or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwark, I you pray. - Chaucer.

Tripped over another good one that is still in the wordbook ... ween. (Nothing to do with Halloween).

ween - is both a noun and a verb.

n. - Speculation; a matter for speculation; also, a belief, an opinion, doubt.

in ween = in doubt.
no ween = no doubt.

v. - be of the opinion (opine), think, or suppose.

And many more!

Without threap, I ween that words for Latinates can be found!

Anwulf: "wite = blame (both noun and verb)" : would be befuddled with "white" in today's speech.
Also, we blame someone for something, or blame something on someone. How do we use "wite".
Don't wite me!!
"overweening" (like me!) is still in today's speech.
I'm not altogether sure about "ween" = doubt; isn't it more like "Wahn" as in wahnsinnig?
"threap" sounds like a better bet....
I think that what you you are doing in finding OE words to revive which are still in today's wordbooks is a very good approach. :)))
(as against words from OE which have long since died and leave folk floundering)

@Jayes ... English is rife with words that are bewilderingly alike. Some have sunder spellings but have the same sound (homophones): break/brake, heal/heel, cereal/serial; others are spelled the same but are said sunderly (homographs): entrance, invalid, moped, or wound. A third set (homonyms) put together the alikenesses, they are said and spelled the same, but have sunder meanings: bear, plain, saw, asf. Erd-speakers are so wonted to them that we aren’t in the least bothered that a bank may be both a geltwist (financial, gelt + wist) place and also the side of a river. While I try to keep away from these, the old words are what they are.

What bewildered me a bit when I saw first "wite" was that it looked a lot it might be a shape of the verb "to wit". Indeed, someone looking for the meaning had been playing Scrabble and her opponent said that it meant smart or smarter. But I know that wit is conjugated truly oddly. Present tense is, "I wot". Past tense is "wist", ppl is wist or witten. But to wit is not to wite! Wite as a noun also means blame or responsibility ... thus it was also the name of a type of fine under the "frith-borg" laws.

Ween is truly interesting. And yes, I too was amazed to see that overweening (overconfident, OED) was still in the wordbook. It's now in my wordstock! I have sundry byspels of "without ween" being glossed as "without doubt". However, these guys each-seen, do no use it that way: http://jesusween.com/ . lol

As we build the wordstock, there should be more ways to say the say the same thing. We already have words like "to know" and "to wit" that have very alike meanings. Sometimes we just have to edquicken the old meanings. Catch (a Latinate) took over most of the meanings of latch ... it even took the latch's then strong past tense shape! It was catch, catched, catched and latch, laught, laught (and laught as a ppl also meant "prey"). Now it is backwards ... catch, caught, caught and latch, latched, latched!

It hasn't been eath these last few months to find these words bewried with dust. Some are in the OED, some are in M-W, and some are in the 1913 Websters, or the Century Dictionary ... they're stuck in nooks and clinging to life. I only go to OE or word upspringing (like geltwist ... which came from a short talk on another forum about a word for finance) when I can't dig up an old word. From OE I try to find the word in ME. and then later brooks for the word. There are many that I haven't touched on! I still find words every day.

This word might come in handy for unexpectedly, suddenly, unusual ... In ME, it was a noun, verb, adj, and adv! ... Like ween, it has sundry meanings some seem to be gainsaying!

Word of the DaySunday, October 23, 2011
ferly, noun;
1. Something unusual, strange, or causing wonder or terror.
2. Astonishment; wonder.

adjective:
1. Unexpected; strange; unusual.
Quotes:
I had had half a thought, at the outset, of telling him about the ferly, my glimpse of the palace. But I couldn't bring myself to it. -- Clive Staples Lewis and Fritz Eichenberg, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
Lord, ye'll have all the folk staring as if we were some ferly. -- Margaret Oliphant, Kirsteen
Origin:
Ferly is derived from Old English fǣrlīc meaning fǣr (fear) and -līc (-ly). It was related to the German gefährlich meaning dangerous.

Overweening > O.E. oferwenian, overwēnan > over + wenan; WEEN "think, hope, intend, expect, suppose"; also, "doubt" < M.E. wene < Old English wēn, wēna < O.E. wēnan "to think" < O.S. wānian, O.N. væna, O.Fris. wena, O.H.G. wanen, Ger. wähnen & Wahn, Goth. wēnjan "to expect, suppose, think" < PGmc. *wēniz, *wēnōn; *wēnijanan.

"German Hohn, verhöhnen? for hosp .. hosc ... "

Hohn (scorn, mock, ridicule) < OHG hōna/hōni "mock", OE hēan " low, mean, wretched, depressed, abject, humble, poor, miserable, humiliated; despicable < PGmc. *haunijō, *haunaz (cf. MLG/MHG hōn, Gothic haun(s), ON hāδ, OFris hāna, Dutch hoon)

OE words from hēan:

hēanlic > ignominious, abject, poor
hēanmōd > downcast, depressed, sad
hēannes > treading down
hēanspēdig > poor

It can be muddled with the nominative/accusative plural of hēah 'high', which is also spelled hēan, as in hēa(h)nes ("highness") as so on and so forth.

@Ængelfolc ... Interesting. There is vowel shift for the OE that is sunder from the other Germanic tungs.

Maybe hûsc n. mockery, derision, scorn, insult ['hux']?

In ME, hean made it as hēn(e) ... (a) Poor, needy, wretched; riche and ~; (b) contemptible; also, hateful, injurious; holden for ~, to hold (sb.) in contempt.

I haven't seen it beyond ME tho hean, heen, or hene would be a good word for contempt which is Latin for scorn (scorn itself has aGermanic root).

Overween \O`ver*ween"\, v. t. [AS. oferwenian]
To think too highly or arrogantly; to regard one's own thinking or conclusions too highly; hence, to egotistic, arrogant, or rash, in opinion; to think conceitedly; to presume.

OE ofer-wennan, -wenian to be proud, become insolent, or presumptuous.

A couple of interesting lists:
a sampler of obsolete English words
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/39453.html
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/90704.html

I like widderwin (also widerwin, witherwin --- opponent, adversary). Compare to widdershins - counterclockwise.

Benothinged (pp or benothing (v))- annihilated, destroyed is good ... and still brooked!

An interesting read (I like beslobber!):

More "Be" Verbs and Adjectives

A veritable flood of terms meets us here. Someone whose clothes are dirty might be bedaubed, bedabbled, besmeared, bespattered or beslubbered. I suppose that splashing through mud was such a preoccupation in medieval and early-modern England that they needed loads of words to describe one who hadn't negotiated the roads cleanly. However, ***beslobber*** means to praise fulsomely or, more usually, "to kiss like a drivelling child." An 1828 quotation from Macaulay is to the point, "The salaried Viceroy of France...beslobbering his brother and courtiers in a fit of maudlin affection." To beseem means to befit or suit--"it ill beseems you to complain."

Clothes that have been patched many times are bepatched; a log cabin is betimbered; an addled or confused person is betwattled and a person who bespouts is one who recites things in a pompous manner. Something reduced to nothing is ***benothinged***. "His aim was to benothing the competition." Finally, my favorite is benighted, whose older and rarer meaning is simply to be overtaken by darkness of night [John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress says, "I am like to be benighted, for the day is almost spent"] while the more usual meaning is to "involve in intellectual or moral darkness, in the 'night' of error or superstition." As England flexed its muscles in the 18th and 19th centuries, it found this word eminently useful to describe those who fell under its imperial sway.
http://www.drbilllong.com/SpellersDiary/114125.html

What are you people babbling about? I thought this was a website about English, which is an actual living language, not an imaginary one.

@dogreed ... It is eath to see, that you have not read the thread since, if you had, you wouldn't write such benighted words. I know it is a long thread ... but read it thru and if you wish to discuss a truer English rather than the mongrel tung of Latinates, then feel free to delve into English words with Anglo-Germanic roots.

BTW, think that "eath" is "imaginary" ... still in the wordbook: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eath ... eath, eather, eathest, and eathly.

@AnWulf:

HEAN (HENE) seems to survive in town names like Hinton Blewett, Sommerset, England. In the Domesday, it was "Hantone" < from hean "poor" + tun "enclosure".

Hidden knowledge >>> the town name Heanor (in Derbyshire, England) is akin to Han(n)over [Niedersachsen, Germany]

Oops...>> bad overbringing >> '[auf] dem hōh(e)n', "on the high"; also, OE thǣm = German dem.

German [auf dem] hōh(e)n uover = hōh(e)n(u)over > hōnover > han(n)over

O.English [ǣt thǣm] hēa(h)n ōfer = hēanō(f)er > hēanō(f)r > hēanōr

@jayles: "Q: is "headstrong" pejorative or not???"

I am a little late here, but I say NO. I guess it may be some-what softer to say "greatly willful": folks like this know who they are anyway. You won't be slighting them in the least bit.

@dogreed: "I thought this was a website about English, which is an actual living language, not an imaginary one."

This website is about English, whether from yesteryear, today, or tomorrow. What seems lost on you is that we find true English words to put in the stead of French and Latin ones (sometimes Greek, too). Words from Old, Middle, and Latter-Day English are in play. Read the thread as AnWulf put forth.

Ængelfolc: re "headstrong": thanks; part of my job is to make student aware of rude/polite/formal/informal nuances. In hindsight I guess if I am not sure it matters not.
I must say this blog has made me far too aware of how laughable today's English is.
Today I unclouded the word "premonition" as "forewarning"; which was quickly understood. "Deja-vu" I brought over as "already seen"; but I mark that in German it is not " das Schon-gesehen-Erlebnis", as I would have thought. You have some housekeeping of your own to do !
Struggled with "inequality": in Portugese it is not quite the same: "desiqualdade" .
What happened to "gleich" in English? (cf Ungleichheit)
Ich erreiche bald Rentenalter ! My days are numbered!

@jayles - The word "evenhood" (also evenhede) is in the old Century wordbook with the meaning of equality. ME also had evenship. So "inquality" would be "unevenhood". I think that we all know what "uneven" means ... so unevenhood should be an eath step from that.

Equal can take the Latin forefast and become inequable or inequitable ... or take the Anglo forefast and be unequal!

As for gleich ... I took a quick look in OE and ME but didn't see any direct cognates. Maybe Ængelfolc can come up with one.

Today's English LIKE & ALIKE (strengthened and shape swayed by Old Norse álíkr) < O.E. ġelīc (*ga- "with, together" + *likan "body") and Ger. gleich < P.Gmc. *galīkaz

@Ængelfolc ... Thanks! You know ... sometimes something is looking one right in the eyes and you don't see it! lol

I had never looked up the etym of "like" ... sure enuff ... it comes from a shortening of gelīc. In ME there was both alike and ilike (and elike) ... alikli = equally, ilike-dēl (like-deal) = equally, similarly ... However, alikeness which one would think would mean equality ... instead is like likeness ... and not equality. So I guess we're back to using evenhood for equality.

Or there is unevenness ....
"Inequality and the wealth divide" => Unevenness and the wealth gap.
"Wealth is spread unevenly across the world."

Whilst struggling to uncloud "intransitive" and "iranstitive", I began using "no-object-verb" and "must-object-verb", which is really good pidgin. Later I thought we could use "no-yoke" and "cross-yoked" when talking about verbs; unless you come up with better.

Evenness could also work ... tho sometimes it doesn't match up with "equality" ... sometimes it does. At least there seems to be a big tale of bypels and there almost seems to be a lothing (loathing) to brook it as it is often in quotes:

“Crowder and colleagues here and at the University of Georgia use the term "evenness" to describe the relatively equal abundance of different species in an ecosystem.” PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories

“This is an acceptable, even admirable, homage to the virtue of "evenness" as we seek to deter violence by a few, mostly Middle Eastern, young men.” Redskins Insider Podcast -- The Washington Post

“Each microwave oven in our Ratings (available to subscribers) gets evaluated with a number of different tests, including heating evenness, defrosting, and ease of use.” Consumer Reports: Inside CR Test Labs: How we test microwave popcorn settings

“It scored very good at heating evenness and ease of use, excellent at defrosting.” Consumer Reports: Best home appliances for the holidays

“Florent was a very deliberate man, and a man who had at his command perfect evenness of temperament whenever it was not a question of his enthusiastic attachment to his brother-in-law.” The French Immortals Series — Complete

I should add that "evenness" is also uniformity ... Does uniformity imply equality?

As for yoked = transitive ... I'll have to umthink that one a while. To yoke something is to bind it with another so it works in that way. A yoked verb is one that must be bound to an object. If that is so, then I would put forth that yokeless would work for intransitve.

Or maybe a bind or bound-verb and a bindless one?

@jayles: "Later I thought we could use "no-yoke" and "cross-yoked" when talking about verbs; unless you come up with better."

What about LINK "anything serving to connect one part or thing with another; a bond or tie"? < O.E. (h)linke (cf. O.E. hlencan (pl.) "armor") < likely O.N. *hle(n)kkr or Old Danish lænkia < P.Gmc. *khlankijaz (cf. Frankish *hlankjan, whence flinch (flench); Eng. lank < OE hlanc < same PGmc. roots; Eng. flank, flange < L.O.E. flanc < O.Fr. flanc, flanche(f.) < Frankish/ OHG
*hlanca < *hlank(ij)az)

rel "link": sadly we already use "linking" "linkers" when talking about conjunctions and linking adverbs like "however". Most textbooks now use "linking words"; and also "lead-in" instead of "introduction", so some headway is being made.

@jayles: That's great news! Well, how about:

1. fastening
2. hitch
3. hook
4. knot
5. splice

Thoughts?

@jayles: ""Deja-vu" I brought over as "already seen"; but I mark that in German it is not " das Schon-gesehen-Erlebnis", as I would have thought. You have some housekeeping of your own to do ! "

Yes....yes we do. One can say, "das Déjà-vu-Erlebnis"; to talk about a feeling of déjà vu, one can say, "das Gefühl, das schon einmal gesehen zu haben".

Ich gratuliere Ihnen zu Ihrem zukuenftigen Ruhestand!

@jayles: "I must say this blog has made me far too aware of how laughable today's English is."

This means A LOT coming from a teacher of English!!

"Ich gratuliere Ihnen zu Ihrem zukuenftigen Ruhestand!"
Werde spaeter ueber Leben, Vorteile und Schattenseiten des Rentnerdaseins an Ruhestranden berichten, wenn ich es komplett erledigt habe. Leider gibt es hier ganz in der Naehe nur zehn Strande......

"This means A LOT coming from a teacher of English!!"
So often, in the classroom, we are groping for some real English word to make the meaning of a latinate word understandable. Take "unconscious" for instance: what springs to mind: "unknowingness" (since the root "sci" is to know) => "unawareness", "witlessness", "unwiitingness"....
The next step is to wonder why we teach it in the first place! Well because people use it, of course. I can forgive the use of latinates as medical terms, but even that has its drawbacks: as one nurse wrote: "In the anterior paragraph" (meaning "in the paragraph above"). That's make English so laughable...

@Jayles ... The anterior paragraph ... that's sad and funny!

The thing with unconscious is that is has two meaning that are nearly akin. One is to be unaware, unwitting, or unknowing and the other to be knocked out. Indeed, one can say that "I was knocked unconscious" meaning knocked out rather than only dazed or "knocked unwittingly". I think the English words are much clearer.

I think I'm going to write a blog on exaggerate and overexaggerate to highlight the inborn problems of using beclouded Latinates. Not only will the writ make it uncloudy that overexaggerate is a word, but also how befuddling wordbuilding is with Latin ... unless you know Latin as well!

The only unblended word that I can think of for exaggerate is "overplay". Overstate is a halfbreed word. I looked to see if there had been "oversay" but I haven't found it. It seems that ME had moren (to more ... or make bigger), overheap (which is what exaggerate calque as), and yelp (to boast, brag, exaggerate).

"overblown" ??

@Jayles ... Overblown is good! Stretch would work as well I think.

Here's something for you from another forum:

[[[The telling part
I was checking the nieceling's homework when I saw something like this question:
Quote:

Read the sentence:

"Evan and Mom cooked soup."

What is the telling part of the sentence?

a) cooked soup
b) Evan
c) and
I told one of my teacher friends about this because it completely confused me, and she explained that it was decided by various educational poobahs that terms like subject and predicate are too hard and ponderous, and so they are being replaced by the terms naming part and telling part.

Is punctuation next? Will periods be called stoppy dots? Why don't we call exclamation points yelly marks? ]]]

Anwulf: I would love not to use grammatical terms like "subject", "object" and so on.
However it's quite difficult to talk about some mistakes without some terminology.
For example, Korean learners of English often write nightmare sentences like:
"How many population the earth can be supported?"
Try unclouding why this is wrong without using some good latinate terminology!
The reason lies in some oddness in Korean verbs which is mistakenly brought across into English. Although we do have bilingual teachers here, I myself have no Korean.
This from Wikipedia:
The passive voice is a grammatical voice in which the subject receives the action of a transitive verb. Passive voice emphasizes the process rather than who is performing the action. In Korean this form is called 피동. There are few patterns to help distinguish between active and passive voices in Korean verbs. This makes this more difficult to learn than a regular Korean grammar rule.

Using the passive voice is extremely common in Korean. Koreans often use it to emphasize what would normally have been the object of the sentence. The following two sentences are grammatically different in Korean but equally correct, notice that the English translation doesn't change:

Passive verbs still work as action verbs but now the object (that usually takes 을 or 를) has become the subject of the sentence (takes the particles: 이 or 가).

길을 막아요. [Traffic] blocks the road.
길이 막혀요. The road is blocked [by traffic]. (막히다 is much more common in this scenario)

We would not get far using "the naming part" and "the telling part" would we!

I should add that Korean like OE is an SOV tongue so word order is something like:
"Hair-breeze-in-blowing-Hee Jin morning-in park-to big-steps-with dog-her walked."

So English understandably them-for struggle-a-bit-of is!

@AnWulf:

What you found shows the brain-washed thinking that abounds in the World of academic English.

The writer childishly mocks the English that he/she thinks is low-brow. His/her "teacher friends" also seem to sneer at putting true English in the stead of the Latin. How sad!

SUBJECT (L. subiectus "to throw under..."; "put beneath") and PREDICATE (L. praedicatum that which is said of/about the 'subject') are fremd. "Naming Part" and Telling Part" are still mixed, but they are better understood by English speaking children. It is almost a guarantee (from Frankish *warand) that English marks would go through the roof should more staffcraft words switch to English ones!

Subject in OE was gecneordnes

Some thoughts:

period > closing (mark) < OE clȳsung/clȳsing; end-mark, end-dot, stop-mark, stop-dot.
exclamation mark > call-out mark, loud-mark
punctuation > cutting marks, dagger marks, word-string leaders

Lastly of course it's all about collocations: for instance I wrote above: "komplett erledigt",
but in truth I am not sure if these words really go together. I thought about "schon erledigt" which I know is ok but not what I meant, "ausfuerlich erledigt", nearer to my meaning but perhaps weird.
The point is that while I like the word "threap" I find I am in threap as to how to use it!
You may threap me down if you will.

In England where English is spoke men say "full stop" at the end of a sentence.

Well, I was like the writer on the forum ... I wondered what the "telling part" was as well. I did a quick search and it seems that it is mostly brooked in grade school (the first few grades). But I did see this for ESL: http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=126277

I haven't been too keen to rename the grammar words. I know what a noun is and that a pronoun takes the stead of a noun ... OK, maybe one could call that a "for-noun" instead of a pronoun. I know that an adverb modifies the verb ... I'm good with that. An adjective, I know that it describes a noun ... OK, maybe there is a better word for that.

Maybe a "telling part" makes more sense than the word predicate. I don't know ... it still seems pretty becloudy to me!

Maybe I should suggest your yoking and yokeless for transitive and intransitive verbs!

Wonderful thought to brook "yokeing" and "yokeless"; perhaps you could begin by writing to all the wordbook publishers like OUP, Websters, and so on and get them to rewrite the wordbooks with [Y] and [YL] after the verbs instead of [I] and [T]. That's the hurdle!

@Jayles ... I'm still working getting folks to brook asf (and so forth) instead of etc. and fb (for byspel) instead of eg! I've been using lk for liken instead of cf (?) or cp for compare. But yoked (yoking) and yokeless makes more sense than transitive and intransitive ... those words always make me stop and think.

Anent threap ... This is from the Webster's:

Threap \Threap\, n.
An obstinate decision or determination; a pertinacious affirmation.

He was taken a threap that he would have it finished before the year was done. -Carlyle.

Threap \Threap\ v. t. [imp. & p. p. Threaped; p.
pr. & vb. n. Threaping.]

1. To call; to name. [Obs.]
2. To maintain obstinately against denial or contradiction;
also, to contend or argue against (another) with
obstinacy; to chide; as:

He threaped me down that it was so. --Burns.

3. To beat, or thrash.
4. To cozen, or cheat.

Threap \Threap\, v. i.
To contend obstinately; to be pertinacious.

It's not for a man with a woman to threap. --Percy's Reliques.

--- More byspels:

“"I weant say that I's fain to see you, but I've no call to threap wi 'waller-lads.” Tales of the Ridings
“The reply was, “Yo’d better not; he’d threap yo’ down th’ loan.” The Life of Charlotte Bronte

Enter in..and haf þi wyf wyth þe, Þy þre sunez, withouten þrep. (Enter in..and have the wife with thee, thy three sons, without threap.) ... withouten ~, without argument; without opposition.

Strife, quarreling; disputing, protest.
They thraste him full thraly; þan was þer no threpyng. ... ouch!
Do way your threpyng! Are ye wode?

Tenses from OE
future - tóweardnes f ... towardness

past tense - forðgewiten tíd/tíma ... (forðgewîtan - to go forth, pass, proceed, go by: depart, die. ... forðgewitenes f. departure)

past - adj beleorendlic ... beleoran - to pass by, pass over.

present – andweard adj (andward ... anward/onward?) ...and- = an-, on-, ond- (opposition, negation. Ger. ent-): and occasionally a-.

present time - andweardnes f

Everyone should know most of these 50 and the 30 or more that I added in the comments.

AnWulf

50 Words with the Most Whimsical Prefix
by Mark Nichol
The prefix be- has a variety of interesting roles in language:

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/50-words-with-the-most-whimsical-prefix

@jayles: one can say "komplett erledigt", although rare...

"...begin by writing to all the wordbook publishers like OUP, Websters, and so on and get them to rewrite the wordbooks with [Y] and [YL] after the verbs instead of [I] and [T]. That's the hurdle!"

Maybe there should be a true English wordbook, and a Globalish wordbook for everyone else.

@Ængelfolc ... I don't think we have two sunder wordbooks ... it would befuddle folks to go back and forth. It's alreddy befuddling enuff for ESL folks to go between American English and British English! lol

I just saw this on a website today as an option to vote up a post on a forum: Upvote post.

Vote may be a Latinate but at least it's good Anglo-Germanic wordbuilding.

And ... The word vote has lost it's etym meaning of a vow to do something.

Maybe instead of "voting" would should brook "choose" or "choice" ... Upchoose?

@AnWulf:

I am not wholly on-board with your thought about the wordbooks; Many ESL learners have a goal at odds with the keeping of true English > business and Uni-learning.

ESL-English is a means to an end, and that makes it unalike to, as well as, a big threat to born English speakers; the English tongue is a big slice of the Anglo folkway, not only a tool. It is much akin to what is happening with the German tongue. As I have written many times here, der Träger der Kultur sei die Sprache. Watering down any tongue with wanton borrowings, waters down the folkways of a Folk. Sooner or later, they would then wane and come to naught. For byspel, we hardly know the Goths at all. Their tongue would have died out, if it weren't for Wulfilas.

As for VOTE...

Why not say lot-casting > I'm casting my lot for Rasputin. LOT (OE hlot; cf. Ger. los), CAST (ON kasta). Although CHOOSE is good, too.

POLL is Teutonic, by the way < ME pol, polle < MLG/MDu. pol, poll, pōle < PGmc. *pūlijōn, *pull- "head, top"; cf Dan. puld "hat crown", Swedish pull "head".

@AnWulf: "...it would befuddle folks to go back and forth."

Doesn't it already befuddle folks to go back and forth between the wordbook and a wordhoardbook? (thesaurus), so they can understand the outland/fremd words that academicians try to make us believe are English? Other byspels: medical wordbooks, law wordbooks, asf.

@Ængelfolc ... I think the befuddling would be to look in world-english wordbook and see tr and intr (transitive and intransitive) or cf and cp (compare) and then go to an erd-english wordbook and see yk and ykl (yoked and yokeless) or lk (liken).

BTW, the OED online has two version ... US and "world" ... which I find utterly irksome!

The meaningful thing is that we (erd-speakers) be at the helm of the wordbooks whether it is for erd-speakers or ESL learners. If we let the all-worlders (globalists) run it, then you are right ... we're doomed! There will always be nooks or erd-speakers ... British English, American English, Australian English, asf. But we can't let "Indian English" take the lead.

Even then, at the same time, we're trying to wrest wieldness/wielding (control) of the tung from the Latin lovers.

Jayles likely has more knowledge of things like this ... but I have friends in Asia and they like the Anlgo-root words. For byspel, they like the words with the forefast be- and want to learn these words. But I have to tell them that most of them would likely befuddle erd-English speakers since so many are unbrooked by us! So maybe it isn't so much of a problem all-worlding the tung ... as it is with us. We have met the widderwin and he is us!

@AnWulf: "The meaningful thing is that we (erd-speakers) be at the helm of the wordbooks whether it is for erd-speakers or ESL learners."

Yes, I think you have got it down! Well, US English (which I learned) is not so heavily swayed by the whole thoughtless one-world drivel; therefore it needs its own wordbook.

The great down-side to giving the World one tongue is that tongue put in as the frame-work (English) will lose its self. One-worlders will see to that. They will warp the tongue in the name of togetherness and being kind to all folks, allowing them to teem with a bit of their tongues to make them feel as one with everyone else.

From there, the path will be set for other darker woes; I wish not to go down this way.

ODDLY TEUTONIC > Ranch < 1800–10, Americanism (Chiefly Western U.S. and Canada) a large farm used primarily to raise one kind of crop or animal; a country house; < Mexican Spanish rancho "small farm, camp (Spanish: camp)" < Old Spanish ranchar(se) to lodge, be billeted < Middle French (se) ranger to be arranged, be installed < Old French ranger < ranc < Frankish *hrinc/*hring < P.Gmc. *(h)rankaz "straight, upright"; Akin to ring (from the same root).

Much as I would teach "befuddled" to ESOL students, "confused" is more common and therefore comes first.
My own guess is that something like 250 000 people in India are fluent in English, compared to just 60 000 native speakers in England. We are indeed just the rearguard.
One can hear "informations" on the "English" version of Deutsche Welle. That, along with "She suggested me to do something", are at the spearhead of global English. However English is always changing - "thee" and "thou" are making a last stand with the older people in hidden dales in what was once Mercia. Soon they will be gone. But then if the doomsday forecasts for the umwelt are true, maybe we will all be too!

Yes, ranch has a long, twisted etym. Range has the same root. What made you look that word up?

Anent one-world English ... English alreddy had many words from sundry other tungs ... tomato, chocolate, coyote, asf from Nahuatl; hooch, honcho, asf from Japanese, boondocks (boonies) from Tagalog ... many ur-folk (first folks) words, klong from Thai; checkmate, badgir (badgeer), kiosk, purdah, satrap(y), asf from Persian/Farsi; samsara and others from Hindi, words from likely all the European tungs ... I don't know how much more all-wordly it can get!

@Jayles ... As I said, we have met the widderwin and he is us.

(BTW, widder [also wider or wither or sundry others] means against, contra, counter ... for byspel, widdershins (in the wordbook) is counterclockwise. So the person who is against you winning is your opponent, adversary, enemy ... widderwin(e)

@AnWulf: "English alreddy had many words from sundry other tungs..."

From what time do your speak of? The words you wrote are not threatening; they were borrowed as the Ænglisc came across those things: That's going to happen...that's okay...that's how "living tongues" work. I mean, Gothic isn't going to have a word for coyote, nor will Old Ænglisc have a word for tomato. "Ænglisc" came onto Britannia with about 100 Latin words from the mainland because of some trade with Romans. No big deal, it was "living" at the time.

Jayles has the right thought about things like "informations" asf... that is where the threat to English lies. The folks in India are hardly fluent in English...Globalish maybe, but not English. I've dealt with too many of them in business. You know the lands good at English outside of the Anglo-World > Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Their way of speaking is much more like English (markedly Danish > spoken Danish is not as harsh or throaty as Dutch or German).

I am glad to see everywhereness...it is great English! Who needs "omnipresence"?! In German, we say Allgegenwart/ Allgegenwärtigkeit. "Whereness" is a great word to put in stead of "ubiety". It is true that born English speakers are there own worst foe, since they allow the academic elitists to get away with it!

@AnWulf: "Yes, ranch has a long, twisted etym. Range has the same root. What made you look that word up?"

I am working on a book about French and Latin words in English that are truly Teutonic words. It has seemed too often that the folks are mis-taught (if at all) about the true roots of words in any tongue. English seems markedly rife with shameless, bald oversight (to put it mildly). Too often in the Anglo-World, a word is given to French or Latin roots, when indeed the word is Teutonic. Is treachery (from MHG trechen, not VL * triccare) afoot? It's a work underway...

Oddly enough, newswriters are often aware of short English words: they use "vow" for "promise" in headlines; and other words like "stoush"... Oh well at least here "in the South" (ie the real South) they do.

Vow is a Latinate ... as is promise

oath - solemn promise
behight - to vow, to pledge, to intrust, to call, to designate; also a noun; early meaning of hight was a vow and to vow also but now is more just to name ... if brooked at all.
behest upspringally meant vow but now means more an order or command
wed was also a vow, now means to join.

So we're truly on left with two ... oath and behight. I behight to brook more Anglo-Germanic root words!

@Ængelfolc ... I didn't mean those words were a threat to English but only to show that English alreddy brooks words from umbe the world so the all-worlders can't truly bemoan that English is not "inclusive"!

BTW ... I forgot, to cast lots is to leave something to haps ... One might say that that casting lots in a presidential election is, in a way, leaving things to haps! lol

I've always thought it odd that betray and bewray mean the same thing and ... seemingly ... come from sunder roots.

You're right ... I've been to Scandinavia and those who speak English ... many do ... speak it very well.

In today's world, there are no grounds for non-erd speakers to gain the helm of the tung. It is much too eath for non-erd speakers to befriend an erd-speaker online ... I have many kiths (acquaintances) from umbe the world via Facebook and other ways that love to learn and speak English.

I just got an email this morning from a Thai friend (who wanted to brook some be- words) with this:

Surprised! I used befuddle with two people, one was Canadian,he said he didn't know this word then he turned to ask Howie who came from USA and 78 years old. Howie laughed and told us that "I used it with myself everyday" lol

Really enjoy it and thank you so much.

I just found a website for "freespeling" http://freespeling.com/ What bothers me about the website is that they held a "world vote" on a list of words ... and the spelling reforms show it. I brook some free-spelling so that in itself isn't bothersum. The guidelines (or guydlines on their site) are somewhat reasonable ... I don't agree with them all but the guidelines aren't too bad. But the results leave a little to be wanted. The results look more like all-worlders won the voting rather than erd-speakers.

I feel another blog coming on! lol

@AnWulf: German ur- is akin to Old English ōr-, ūr-, why not put it in stead of "up"?

@Ængelfolc ... English brooks the forefast ur- as in urtext. We even have ursprache! It has ruffly the same meaning as ōr- in OE.

ur- |ʊ(ə)r|
comb. form
primitive; original; earliest: urtext.

It is often brooked with a hyphen like ur-rendition (seen here in a writ that I redd last night: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2011/04/the_nonplussed_problem.html) onefoldly for the sake that most folks don't know it, so it is set off.

Oddly enuff, there is also or- as in ordeal ... to deal out ... upspringally, it was to deal out or share out pain ... a trial by ordeal.

@AnWulf:

O.E. ōr- and German ur- are the same, although there some other meanings (like "out of") that blur things up; *ûruz (wild ox) and *ûram (water) > Goth us/ur, ON ōr, OE or- > can all mean early, thoroughly, wild ox (as in auerochs), dross (slag), asf.

The or- in ordeal is < Old English a- (unstressed), ǣ-, ā-, ō-, or-(rare) (stressed) ≪ Germanic *uz-/*ūt (cf. Ger. urteil "judgment"). Also, akin to 'out'.

It is a word with a greatly addling word-lore.

BTW > 'addling' is another great word for "to make or become confused". Also baffle (Germ. baff machen), muddle, befuddle, blur, dumbfound, asf.

@AnWulf: "Maybe hûsc n. mockery, derision, scorn, insult ['hux']?"

*hutōn-, *hūsk=, *husp=, *ga-hiut=, *ga-hūt=, *hiutian-/*hūtian- > Norwegian, (old) Swedish: huta, Old English: hūsc, hosp, hyspan;Old Saxon: hosc; Old High German: hosc > Hohn; Middle High German: hosche (gehiuze, hiuzen) > Hohn

The earliest written English word-string is > "g͡æg͡og͡æ -- mægæ medu" ('howling she-wolf -- reward to my kin'). It is from about 450-480 A.D. Theses are the oldest, and earliest, tokens of Anglo-Saxon runes (likely Anglo-Frisian). The writing is on the Undley Bracteate (a coin), which was likely made in Schleswig-Holstein or southern Scandinavia, and brought to Ængeland by an Anglo-Saxon settler.

The earliest Teutonic writing is the Caistor-by-Norwich astralagus, raïhan (roe) which is from about 425 AD.

"there was a knight that highte Theseus" - Chaucer, the knight's tale (opening) I think

@Jayles ... You likely can see that akinship between hight and heissen.

Nowadays we'd likely say, "There was a knight called Theseus" or named Theseus.

It has a twisted history in ME ... It was also written as hoaten and heighten. It was a past tense of hoaten as was hoaten (also hoten). Many spellings. But, in the end, makes it thru as hight and is now a weak verb.

@Ængelfolc - "medu" is meed nowadays and still in the wordbook.

meed |mēd|
noun
a deserved share or reward: He must extract from her some meed of approbation.

@AnWulf : Yes, I am aware. Thanks!

In the English word-stock before the year 900, mead < M.E. mede/ meed < O.E. medu/ meodu < P.Gmc. meduz (cf. O.N. mjöðr, Dan. mjød, O.Fris./M.Du. mede, O.H.G. metu, Ger. Met; Polish miód (from the same PIE root)).

hight "to be named, be called, to command, to summon, to address” (highten) < O.E. hēht (pret. of O.E. hātan; cf. Old Saxon: hētan, Old Dutch/ Frisian: *hēta(n) ) < P.Gmc. *haitanan (akin to Gothic haitan, L.G. heten, German heißen, Danish hedde, Dutch heten, and Swedish heta). What's more, L. cite, citation are from the same PIE root as the Teutonic.

@Ængelfolc ... then hight might be a good swap for cite. Even sounds alike! lol

Medics have been cited/highted as a key example of a modern breed of technical expert.

The summons highted four of the defendants.

The Plaintiffs have properly highted the case law in response to this motion.

@AnWulf: "...hight might be a good swap for cite."

YES! I thinks so...