Questions tagged [history]
Questions about the history and trends of the English language.
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19th century English texts occasionally use Germanic-style number words, such as "four-and-twenty". When did this fall out of use?
19th century English texts occasionally use Germanic-style number words, such as "four-and-twenty", but the same text would also have the modern "twenty-four" in places (see e.g. Conan-Doyle for ...
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Jackson = $$son: pun or topical reference
Alfred Bester's short story The Demolished Man (the original version serialized in Galaxy magazine in 1952, not the novel published in 1963) may have been the first instance of SMS-speak, featuring ...
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Interjection "et voilà"
I know et voilà is a French interjection and means there it is.
It is very much used in the US. Why is the use of et voilà so popular in the US?
Which historical fact has made it so popular?
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Is there a historical trend towards shorter sentences?
From my own reading of older books (eg. 18th, 19th century) in various styles (novels, philosophical treatises, scientific publications), it seems that sentences were longer back then.
Is there good ...
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When did it become correct to add an “s” to a singular possessive already ending in “‑s”?
According to my grammar book, but at variance to the answer to this question, the correct singular possessive if a word ends in ‑s is:
James’s car
The grammar book allows exceptions for historical ...
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How dangerous is the acceptance of common usage on traditional English?
I mean how far should we flow on with the current called "common usage"?
Is there a fear that the real English is going do disappear someday?
By the way, as for me, I like common English myself. :)
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Why don't English nouns have grammatical gender?
English nouns — other than those with natural gender, e.g. people or animals — do not generally have grammatical gender, and so are referred to as 'it' rather than 'he' or 'she'.
However, modern ...
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What is the first recorded appearance of the mistranslation "Red Square"?
Does anybody know when the mistranslation "Red Square" made its first recorded appearance? Have there been any noteworthy attempts at establishing the correct translation "Beautiful Square" at some ...
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What is the factual basis for "pirate speech"? (Did pirates really say things like "shiver me timbers"?)
The "pirate speech" we hear/see/read, for example, on the website Talk Like A Pirate Day consists of a rhotic dialect characterized by phrases like "shiver me timbers," "ooh arh me hearties," and so ...
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Why have the subjunctive and indicative converged in Modern English?
It is to me a curious fact that the subjunctive mood of verbs in English has so nearly disappeared in modern times. In fact, even the correct form and usage of the subjunctive in Modern English barely ...
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Why do written English vowels differ from other Latin-based orthographies?
Written English vowels differ from other Latin-based orthographies. Consider what the written vowels in the romance languages represent. Also, for example, consider this simple comparison between a ...
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Genetic Relatives
In the vein of historical linguistics, what languages (modern or dead) are considered genetically related to English? Also what differences mark a language as a genetic relative vs a language that had ...
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