Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Username

AnWulf

Member Since

June 19, 2011

Total number of comments

616

Total number of votes received

580

Bio

Native English speaker. Conversant in German, Russian, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon.

Ferþu Hal!

I hav a pilot's license (SEL certificate); I'm a certified diver (NAUI); I'v skydived and was qualified as a paratrooper in the Army (Airborne!); I was a soldier (MI, Armor, Engineer).

I workt for a corporation, was a law enforcement officer, and a business owner.

Bachelor's in Finance; minor in Economics
Masters of Aeronautical Sciences

Strong backer of English spelling reform.

Browncoat

Now I'v written my first novel [ http://www.lulu.com/shop/lt-wolf/the-world-king-book-i-the-reckoning/ebook/product-22015788.html ] and I'm working on others.

http://lupussolus.typad.com
http://lupussolusluna.blogspot.com
http://anwulf.blogspot.com

Latest Comments

“Anglish”

  • February 17, 2012, 12:12pm

Almost always it is better to note a standing word ... even an old one (I call them old-logisms when folks ask me). At least you can giv them a link. If yu point them to the Anglish Moot ... they'll just say that yu're making words up and that it is nothing more than a con-lang (constructed language) like Klingon. (Even Qapla' has earned an entry.)

So if yu like "sigor" ... then go forth and benote it! Qapla'!

Computer mouses or computer mice?

  • February 17, 2012, 10:17am

Mongeese is noted so often that maybe it should be thought of as alternativ plural! However, Google NGrams show that mongooses still heavily outnumbers mongeese in usage but, hey, mongeese doesn't hurt my ears.

He was sat

  • February 17, 2012, 9:47am

I'll back Brus up. If the teach is teaching ENGLISH, then the teacher should set the example and use proper English with standard pronunciation (with leeway for accents). I'd hate to walk into a US school and hear an English teacher speaking in ebonics to students ... kind of defeats the purpose!

If the students aren't hearing correct English in school ... do you thing they're hearing it at home? Or listening to hip-hop or rap? Maybe the gym teacher can get away with using ebonics but not the English teach or literature teacher!

Floorings?

  • February 17, 2012, 9:37am

The word "floorings" is common in construction and elsewhere:

Every day we are exposed to low doses of phthalates in food containers, perfumes, hairsprays, ***floorings***, paints, toys and medical devices. … E: Environmental Magazine, May/Jun 2008

Once inside, a judicious rearrangement of walls and an introduction of a variety of multihued walls and ***floorings*** give the galleries new life. … Christian Science Monitor, Dec 10, 1999.

“Anglish”

  • February 16, 2012, 12:25pm

If yu want to note sigor, why change the spelling? Note it as is.

Anent color ... while color is a Latinate, the "colour" spelling is from Old French. Every time one notes "colour", one is giving homage to the French.

1824, A Complete and Universal English Dictionary, p814
SIG, used in compounds, is derived from sig, victory. Sax. Thus Sigward implies a victorious preserver.

1826, Etymons of English Words, p195
SIG, in forming the names of great warriors, … S. sig, victory, a victorious man; as Sigismund, protector of victory; Sigward, warden of conquest; Sigard, victorious disposition

“Anglish”

  • February 16, 2012, 5:22am

2005, Diana L. Paxson, “Taking Up The Runes" page 172:
The Anglo-Saxon journey charm adapted for the ritual invokes "sig" power for every aspect of existence. / It is unfortunate that all the words surviving in English that could be used to translate sig have Latin roots, for it would seem that in the original languages, sig may have had connotations that are not present in words like "triumph" and "victory."

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While the pronunciation should be seeg ... most folks will say sǐg ... like fig. I'm ok with that. There's a story behind the etymology of the nowadays "sig" it's not straight from OE sige which is why the pronunciation should be seeg like German Sieg. But nowadays orthography being what it is, English speakers will lean towards sig like fig if they don't know and most won't. Not a big deal to me.

I like the OE sige and sigor ... I think sigor would hav been the easier one to bring forward had it been needed. But I wontedly choose a standing word over edquickening an old one or making one up. Sig stands. So for me, sig it is!

At Ængelfolc ... Sige, siᵹe, and sy are found in ME. ... Seo streongðe & se *sige* wearð þæs cynges.
Machabeus..oferwan his feond, & beð for þi isette his *sigefesta* (victorious) dæda on ðam bocum on bibliothecan Gode to wurðmente.

The problem with the g (and the c) is that they hav had to do twofold work from the beginning. Even in New English, they're problems. Is the g hard as in get or soft as in general? Is the c hard as in can or soft as in Caesar? Without recorded media, how would folks from 1,000 years from now kno? So for the words that didn't make it to NE, we can't say with 100% gewiss that we kno how it would be said. It's a best guess.

But for our needs, I don't think it truly matters how the Saxons said it since we're not going to speaking with Saxons and so many other words hav changed over the years. The pronunciation for maegth (mægþ) in the OED is sunder than than the Saxon way ( Brit. /magθ/, /meɪθ/, U.S. /mægθ/, /meɪθ/). So even tho mægen is now main ... there's no reasum why we can't make a doublet out it by edquickening mægen as maegen (said like the name Maegen) for the word power (which is what it meant in OE!).

Computer mouses or computer mice?

  • February 16, 2012, 4:37am

The word mongoose comes from Marathi maṅgūs. The anglicized spelling has nothing to do with its plural form and, as is normal for most outlander words, it was given the regularized English 's' plural form.

“Anglish”

  • February 14, 2012, 8:24pm

byspel http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/byspel ... forbus? I'v seen it in wiktionary but it has no references and I can't find it in the MED nor can I find the OE word it supposedly comes from. No byspels are given of its brooking. They may stand but I haven't seen them.

In OE, example was bīspel (byspel) and bīsen(e) (bisen/bysen ...by seen). I started out noting bysen but swapped to byspel since it is a cognate with Ger. Beispiel. ... My only problem is that I want to say zum Beispiel insted for byspel! lol

The "g" was a "y" in the Late West Saxon dialect before "e" or "i" ... often but not always ... And not always in the other major dialects either. The LWS was likely the softest of the sundry dialects. But there are byspels of a hard "g" before these vowels ... after all, we hav beget (OE begietan) and forget (OE forgietan) ... we still hav gebur and gemot/gemote/gemoot all with a hard "g". Furthermore, we hav a slew of German loanwords with a hard "ge-". I'v even seen "gefrain" (reputation) being brooked. So regardless of how the LWS might hav said the word, we get to pick.

With OE and early ME words, yu can stay true (or truer) to the spelling or the perceived Late West Saxon dialect ... but yu often can't do both. As for me, I'll take the spellings with the hard 'g'. Many of the words lost the ge- forefast owing to that it was soft so if yu go with to the 'y' lude (sound) then yu'r making the same mistake again. Truly, I don't understand this fascination with wanting to edquicken the Late West Saxon ludes. Aside from that ... "sig" is a standing word. There's no need to offer up a created word. ... For sig, I might hav gone with "sige" and a hard "g" but there was no need since "sig" is already there ... and it is said with a hard "g". It sounds like Ger. Sieg ... If I were choosing the spelling, I'd likely go with seeg but again, the word is alreddy there ... it is what it is.

“Anglish”

  • February 14, 2012, 3:11pm

Sig (victory) - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sig ... from ME sige http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sige (He sige hælde. — Aelfric's Treatise on the Old Testament, 1175).

Yes, yu can't throw too much out at one time. Most of my free spelling is eath-seen ... hav=have, altho, tho, thru, enuff, asf ... is noting words like brook/benote/note or byspel for example that throws them ... then acknow for recognize and a few others.

“Anglish”

  • February 14, 2012, 11:05am

Bringing a word forward from Middle English isn't too hard. Jumping back to Old English is a little trickier at times owing to orthography. ME has its own problems in that spellings were all over the place. Thus one would find wode and wood swapped at will even tho they hav greatly sunder meanings! They were unbecloudy in OE but not in ME and the spellings are still befuddled. To wax wode and to wax wood are not even near.

Old meanings are often lost. For byspel, folks don't kno that "to brook" means "to use" or "to note"/"to benote" also means "to use". They think that manship is a synonym for manhood ... and they note it that way. Only this morning I updated the wiktionary entry for manship to inhold the older, lost meanings as well.

Yesterday I dithered over whether to use "ingang" when I was writing a narrativ. Ingang is still in play in nowadays English but is mostly unknown.

I latch flak almost everyday from someone since I do note this words ... that and my freespelling! lol

If yu want some of these words to come back into noting, then yu hav to note them every day til they become twoth (second) nature.

Questions

What can I do besides... October 8, 2011