Questions tagged [history]
Questions about the history and trends of the English language.
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What do we call the past movement to latinize English?
When examining intriguing etymologies, Merriam-Webster often brings up a historic movement to regularize the English language by making it more like Latin, as they do in this video examining the ...
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Historical resistance to inanimate 'will'
English, it is said, has no future tense. To indicate future we do not inflect our verbs but instead use the modal verb will.
In his answer to Why do we say “was supposed to” for “should have”? ...
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'To lie' and 'to lay' / 'to rise' and 'to raise' / 'to fall' and 'to fell' <-- Did English used to have more pairs like this?
My understanding is that there aren't many pairs of intransitive and transitive verbs in modern English. Off-hand, I know of three (though I think there are more):
lie vs lay
rise vs raise
fall vs ...
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What is the etymology or history of "Your" for addressing a noble?
There are several ways of noble addressing, such as:
Third person - female (Her)
Third person - male (His)
Second person (Your)
e.g : Your Highness
But, what are the meanings behind that?
Why it ...
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History of 'acronym' versus 'initialism'?
Nowadays on the internet there's a contingent who make a strong distinction between 'acronyms', which they say must be pronounced "phonetically" (for lack of a better term), and 'initialisms'...
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Is a "camelopard" part-camel, part-leopard or part-camel, part-pard?
I'm honestly not sure if this belongs more on Mythology.SE, but I think it's (just) more of an etymology question.
The English word 'giraffe' derives from the Arabic word zarāfah (زرافة) which ...
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Would an American girl aged 12-14 really use the "F-word" casually like this in 1947?
In the 1997 movie "Lolita", in the beginning set in 1947, there is a scene where Dolores Haze (12 or 14, White, girl) has this conversation with a friend:
Mary Rose: "See you later, ...
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How was the è in past-tense verbs pronounced?
How would Shakespeare have pronounced damnèd for example?
How about the end of Nurse's Song by Blake:
The little ones leapèd, and shoutèd, and laugh'd
And all the hills echoèd
How would he have ...
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Why ships and countries are 'her' in the old texts but not 'it'?
I have read both of these two good questions and answers and I got the answer of my question, that in the modern English "it" is used more than "her" while referring to a ship or ...
user431762
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Why does the demonym "Canadian" appear irregular?
In particular -
Given that people from America are Americans, why are people from Canada not *Canadans?
I'm in search of a historical and etymological answer, addressing questions such as the date and ...
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What were/are the rules regarding relative pronouns from c. 1800?
I've been reading some rather old literature, often ranging from the 18th Century through to the late 19th Century, and I'm trying to increase my comprehension of the material, at least to the extent ...
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Where did the snowclone "X-Complete" come from?
I'm familiar with the phrases "Turing-complete" and "NP-complete" from the field of computing science. (Along with less common variations similar to NP-complete such as EXP-...
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What exactly is a "boogy ride"?
Cartoon video source: https://archive.org/details/merriemelodiescoalblackanddesebbendwarfs1943
Title: "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" (1943)
At 03:32, So White goes:
Well, thanks for the boogy ...
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Why is the adjective "below" rare compared to adjective "above"?
Above and below can be used as both an adverb and an adjective to indicate an earlier or a later part of a piece of writing respectively. However, adjective below is rare compared to adjective above (...
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What did daughters (roughly 19 and 11) affectionately call their mothers in the 19th century (1883ish)?
I'm writing a short historical fiction essay on Mercy Brown and family, and was wondering what Mary Brown (19) and Mercy (11) would have called her while she was on her death bed with consumption. ...
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How can there be any indicative if-clauses?
As far as I know, if-clauses always describe theoretical situations. Sometimes the theory is very obvious and self-evident, but it remains a theory. So how can we use the indicative in if-clauses all ...
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Continuous(Progressive) module in Old English
I'm curious as to the origins of the Continuous(progressive) module.
Whenever I meet texts emulating old speech, like in: video game RPGs, books like the Saxon Chronicles, Hollywood movies about the ...
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Why do they call it jacking off?
Where did it come from? What is the history of the idiom? I read it could from several different places but none of them seem like the right answer. Anyone got a good guess?
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Where and/or when is the term "flight ticket" used?
On a forum I frequent some users were complaining about a question using the turn of phrase "flight ticket" as something no English speaker would ever say.
I disagreed because it sounds like ...
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Capitalization rules concerning historical time periods
What are the capitalization rules concerning historical time periods? For example, how would I write:
post-classical Europe
Is it:
"post-classical Europe"
"Post-Classical Europe"
"post-...
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What does “turn down an empty plate” mean?
Reading Raymond Chandler’s The Lady in the Lake and this quote puzzled me:
Tell Webber I was asking for him. Next time he buys a hamburger, tell him to turn down an empty plate for me.
What does it ...
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Teutonic for the thing, Romance for the reflection
In the first chapter of Capital on page 126 (1990 Penguin Edition), a footnote is attached to the sentence, "The usefulness of a thing makes it a use-value."
In English writers of the ...
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Quotation mark use (one word) in software engineering paper
I'm currently researching the origins of a well known software engineering model - the waterfall model. The paper most cited for the model didn't invent the model, but rather said that it doesnt work ...
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Origin of phrase "hold harmless"?
Why not use "immune", "exempt", or "unaccountable" rather than the awkward phrase "hold harmless" in legal documents?
Is there historical context for the use of ...
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Origin of the Expression: "Yes, Harriet"
When I was a child (in the 1970s) when my mother asked my father to do something that he had already planned to do, he would say "Yes, Harriet". Can anyone tell me where this expression &...
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Minimizing the Number of Syllables when Pronouncing Years
Question
Do native English speakers minimize the number of syllables when they pronounce years?
Furthermore, is there linguistics/psychology literature on this phenomenon?
Observations
Here is a ...
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History of the use of "none" for countable nouns
The concept of countable nouns seems to be rapidly disappearing from modern English (e.g. I'm seeing "the amount of people" with increasing frequency, even in reputable publications, which ...
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When did the distinction between "then" and "than" come about?
I'm reading A World in the Moone, by John Wilkins, 1638. I found the line: "I grant that some Astronomicall [sic] appearances may possibly be solved otherwise then [sic] here they are."
I ...
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Late 1800s, arrogant or bombastic to use ten-dollar words?
TL:DR. In 2020, I don't think anyone uses these bombastic words in a town newspaper! If you write or speak them, I think you look arrogant and pretentious! But did newspaper readers in late 1800s ...
user50720
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How to change a word?
My English teachers strenuously denied it, but languages are not immutable. Centuries ago, Daniel Webster regularized the American spelling of various words ("center", "draft", etc). More recently, ...
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No bigodd nonsense
I am writing a novel with a narrator who is (supposedly) writing in 1854-5. One of his characters refers to someone who is "a plain Englishman with no bigodd nonsense about him." As is well known, ...
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Are products of wordsmithing proper English?
Several languages in which English has its roots have easily definable rules. For example, sticking "a" in front of an adjective can mean the opposite of that adjective (symmetrical - asymmetrical), ...
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Is economy a tree?
It's a typical phrase/expression (?) to say that economy has branches:
"..an industry is a branch of an economy.." (Wikipedia)
Now does this mean that economy is perceived to be a sort of ...
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Historical meaning of “program” as a verb
Frozen since 1837, some guy just thawed up and confronted me with the verb 'to program' in the context of CS.
If by programming an automatic computer, we mean “to put instructions in main memory for ...
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