Michael’s Reviews > The English Language > Status Update
Michael
is on page 22 of 178
‘This [aforedescribed] fancy for preserving the alien form of borrowed words, and of restoring it to term long naturalized, is tending to impoverish our language, and to make it more difficult and undemocratic than is at all necessary. It is due to an ideal of ‘correctness’ which is both false and pedantic. True correctness is assimilation, the harmonizing of borrowed elements with the real core of the language …’
— Dec 24, 2018 03:33PM
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Michael’s Previous Updates
Michael
is on page 137 of 178
The invention of Prime Minister as a phrase was originally a term of abuse borrowed from despotic governments.
— Jan 01, 2019 02:58AM
Michael
is on page 133 of 178
‘Nation was an early word, but it was used more with the motion of different races than that of national unity, and was indeed commonly employed to describe any class or kind of persons.’
— Dec 31, 2018 05:30PM
Michael
is on page 121 of 178
The origin of ‘premise’ as a term of logic and another name for residences.
— Dec 31, 2018 08:37AM
Michael
is on page 116 of 178
Skipped right over the contribution of Arabic to English here. At least, there's no citation.
— Dec 31, 2018 04:06AM
Michael
is on page 115 of 178
The idea of ‘common sense’ comes from this physiological idea of four humours in balance and contributing to cognition.
— Dec 31, 2018 04:01AM
Michael
is on page 114 of 178
Temperament comes from the Latin word meaning ‘due mixture’ vis-à-vis the four humours.
— Dec 31, 2018 04:00AM
Michael
is on page 113 of 178
Interesting stuff on words related to medieval physiology and medicine.
— Dec 31, 2018 03:55AM
Michael
is on page 112 of 178
The introduction of three names of stones in the 13th and 14th century and their supposed magical qualities. An amethyst, for example, supposedly protects its possessor from intoxication. The word itself suggests it, too. Μέθη in Greek means intoxication; α- is a negating prefix.
— Dec 31, 2018 03:39AM
Michael
is on page 112 of 178
‘the dipsas, whose bite produced a raging thirst’, from the Greek word διψώ to thirst
— Dec 31, 2018 03:33AM
Michael
is on page 87 of 178
Still a beautiful description of old Indo-European words
— Dec 30, 2018 01:34PM
