@Mikee ... Skops (scops, poets) challenge more than Scrabble players? Surely you jest? Skops have a reputation for altering words and making kennings to fit their poems!

English is wonderful because you CAN add forefasts (prefixes) to make new words ... that's why they exist!

Let's look at how the forefast "a" or "an" can work.

1. to, towards as in aside, aback, ashore ...
2. in the process of, in a particular state as in alone, a-hunting, aglow ...

Now, slumber has sundry meanings ... sleep, dormant, to be asleep, stun, stupefy ...

For byspel, you could write aslumber, a-slumber or a-slumbering to mean a state of dormancy. The volcano is a-slumber.

" ... that Buddhists are awake and everyone else is aslumber." ... I like it!

@Stanmund ... I don't know why you brought up "henchman". While I understood your meaning of henchland it's not needed since vassal is not a Latinate. The root of the word is Celtic.

For that matter, you can swap henchman right in. At it roots, hench means horse. The henchman was the man who held the horse for the lord ... a vassal. Truly you could use henchman since it is a noun (as is vassal). America's henchman, the UK, ... = America's vassal, the UK, ...

I didn't understand your other brooks. That may be owing to your brook of UK slang for hench ... Maybe Jayles understood it but I didn't it. I would rede that you shouldn't use near-by slang to make new words.

Selfhench would mean that you hold the horse yourself not that you behave boldly.

Freehench would be non-tied horse ... like a freeman.

Downhench? You're either getting off the horse or you're making the horse lie down.

Walhench? ... What does the forefast wal(l) mean here?

Outhench? Out-horse? You have more horses? Or the horse stays outside ... where it should stay.

Hench up? = Horse up ... Good if you like horse meat! lol Or if you want to get the horse up after you downhenched it.

It sounds a lot like "hitch up" ...

A common word here is bulk ... bulk up.

If you don't like the word beef, then the word is cow, not horse. I guess you could use the OE spelling of "cu".

Oh, it's not "we art" ... Art goes with thou. We, ye, they ... are.

@Ængelfolc ... That's "my bad" ... I should have written "forthshaft" not schaft ... tho it may be cognate here! But OE has "ship" ... "scip" so if they had meant "forthship" then they would have used "scip". I was thinking the shaft of a spear ...

The word was "forðgesceaft" ... even then it was skopic (poetic). So the skop (scop) was skopicly saying the shaft goes forth meaning the future. I'll see if I can find some examples and see how it works.

@Jayles ... LOL ... I liked the one about atheist ... a person who doesn't use "the"! Maybe we could say that an agnostic is an "unknower". It's not that he doesn't say there is know no god ... just that he doesn't know. An atheist, is one who says there is no god ... an unbeliever.

And yes, it is easy to "blend up" þorn and porn! Maybe ðat riser needs a hat on it! lol Ðe upper Þ looks even more like P ðan þ and p ... but ðen Ð and ð look like D and d. I þink ðat's more of a font þing þo. A good font could make ðat better. Anyway, ðe Icelanders seem get along ok with them! And I read enuff old texts ðat I'm good wiþ ðem as well.

All about þorn http://evertype.com/blog/thorn/
Reclaiming þorn http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1200271.html
Related ... Þe return of þorn: http://alexpeak.com/ww/2008/015.html
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Þ-Þorn-or-the-letter-thorn/25364689783?sk=wall

There are many combinations with lust ... I found lustgrin (lustgryn) and it's translation funny. OE also has gâl ... cognate of Ger. geil ... and has many words with it as well. We may have a doublets from it: goal and gole. It lived into ME as gole (that still can be found in the wordbook but not with the same meaning) BTW, if you see â or ā then it's probably close to the German "ei" and late the long o in English ... hâm = heim = home.

I'v been thinking about second ... English has used the dative form of words to make new words from twegen we get: gen. twéga, twégea, tweágea, twíga, twégera, twégra (later Gospels have tweigre, tweire); dat. twám, twǽm. ... That's real close to twain. Anyway ... none of these are being used so pick one for second.

"The new stone age upheaval had far-reaching outcomes."

Empirical ... hmmmm ... The "eyewitnessed" evidence?

The word I was thinking about earlier today was "future" ... the OE word ... forthschaft ... just doen't seem to tell me anything! Becoming would be the calque of future but that is alreddy taken and has a different meaning. Maybe forthcoming or just forthcome. What does the forthcome hold?

It's late and I'm tired ...

@Jayles ... LOL ... You're right. A few fremd words add a "blowing stench" (flavor) ... but when half your tung has fremd roots? I think that so many Latinates are so far from from their roots that a Roman wouldn't know them! Would he look at "flavor" and know what it means from a blend of Latin flatus ‘blowing’ and foetor ‘stench’ ... and that it means "taste"? Unlikely! ... But then they had a word for taste "gustus" the root of gusto! That's worse than going to Germany and hearing "handy" and it's a cellphone ... at least that does make some sense. But then cell+phone (storeroom-sound?) ... a Lat-Gr half-bred ... It can make one crazy!

At least most of the Greek roots are still known again (recognizable) by Greeks tho maybe not for how it is being brooked from the root:
amber ήλεκτρο
electron ηλεκτρόνιο
electricity ηλεκτρικής ενέργειας (energy)

But what happened to all the Saxon words for things like the broad meaning of "art" or the narrow meaning of "clitoris" or "estrus"? Sometimes while digging thru ... I find a jest (jewel) or two. You have to love "lustgryn" ... which would be spelled "lustgrin" today ... Then if you dig and find that grin has two roots ... one which means "snare, trap" ... and thus lustgrin is the "snare of pleasure"! Gee ... I wonder what the scop (poet) was thinking about.

I'v made a list of words that are still here ... hidden down deep in the wordbook ... that I will post to my blog later. A few like scop and rekels (incense, from OE recels) could use a spelling change (resting on how you say it ... either skop or shope ... I like skop ... Rekels is said like reekels and that would also show its roots ... reek).

I'm alreddy too long here. But as to your rimbook or rimebook (calendar) names for the months, what if you live in the southern halfworld? Then they would be backwards! I guess we'll either have to find more obscure names or just use numbers ... I vote we use Greek numbers this time around! lol

Since we're starting a new month ... September, what a boring name! and misleading since it means, in Latin, the seventh month ... Time for English to bring back the old names ... there were two for September:

Hálig-mónaþ (Holy Month) or Hærfest-mónaþ (Harvest Month)

Wes þu hal!

@mmmmmm ... I'm really tired right now so I'm not understanding your question. I don't know what you're asking about that isn't already explained. Mind expanding the question and referencing what you're asking about?

To get your blood heated up ... here is a post "100 Beautiful and Ugly Words" http://www.dailywritingtips.com/100-beautiful-and-ugly-words/

From the post:
Notice how often attractive words present themselves to define other beautiful ones, and note also how many of them are interrelated, and what kind of sensations, impressions, and emotions they have in common. Also, try enunciating beautiful words as if they were ugly, or vice versa. Are their sounds suggestive of their quality, or does their meaning wholly determine their effect on us?

From another post:
Renaissance scholars adopted a liberal attitude to language. They borrowed Latin words through French, or Latin words direct; Greek words through Latin, or Greek words direct. Latin was no longer limited to Church Latin: it embraced all Classical Latin. For a time the whole Latin lexicon became potentially English. ...

Another outcome of the Norman Conquest was to change the writing of English from the clear and easily readable insular hand of Irish origin to the delicate Carolingian script then in use on the Continent. With the change in appearance came a change in spelling. ...

With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, writers again looked to France. John Dryden admired the Académie Française and greatly deplored that the English had “not so much as a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar; so that our language is in a manner barbarous” as compared with elegant French. ... http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188048/English-language/74803/Affixation