I. The ancient Greek word “spora” (σπορά) meant “seed”. The modern English word “spore” doesn’t quite mean “seed”, but it does mean one of the stages in the reproduction cycle of fungi, such as molds, yeast, or mushrooms, and of some non-flowering plants, such as ferns. The ancient Greek “sporadên” (σποράδην) means “spread or scattered … Continue reading Precious Bodily Fluids

English verbs (and verbs in some related languages) can be divided into two types. One type makes its past tense and past participle by adding a dental suffix, which is pronounced “d” (“I love, I loved, I have loved”) or “ed” (“I want, I wanted, I have wanted) or “t” (“I walk, I walked, I … Continue reading Think, Thank, Thunk

In a previous post (“Ships and Shirts”, posted 28 March 2022), I examined some words which have entered English at two (or more) different times. Both “ship” and “shirt” go back to Old English and derive, through regular laws of sound change, from words in Proto-Germanic; “skipper” and “skirt” also go back to Proto-Germanic, but … Continue reading Fragile Dishes

I was intending to write two or three more essays about etymological families, and I will get back to these soon, but I got sidetracked by Albert Camus’ great novel, La Peste—The Plague. I’ve read it a few times, and it always catches hold of me. I love Camus’ elegant style, and the story he … Continue reading The Beginning of the Plague

Words often belong to etymological families. Sometimes the family relationships are obvious, but sometimes they can be surprising. In this post I will talk about two etymological families, the ship family and the shirt family. A lot of the information here comes from a wonderful book edited by Calvert Watkins, The American Heritage Dictionary of … Continue reading Ships and Shirts

When I was in junior high school, I think it was grade eight, we had regular vocabulary drills. Our grammar book had a section on words that we should know; there was also a list of pairs and triples of words that could be easily confused. I remember just one of these pairs, which for … Continue reading Cynosure and Sinecure

Let’s say we’re having soup for dinner, and I want to make sure it’s ready. I might taste a little and say, “Yes, it’s hot.” Someone who comes in at that moment and doesn’t know what’s going on could ask, “What’s hot?”, and I could answer, “The soup”. Now let’s say that I’ve come in … Continue reading What’s Raining?

In a previous post (Deep Structure Semantic Roles, posted 17 Jan) I showed that the sentence “George weighed the potatoes” has a passive partner, “The potatoes were weighed by George”, but the sentence “George weighed two hundred pounds” doesn’t have a passive partner, “*Two hundred pounds were weighed by George”. I proposed that the phrase … Continue reading More on Semantic Roles

In recent posts I’ve been examining case systems in a few languages; in this post I’d like to introduce the idea of deep structure semantic roles, with a digression on the passive voice in English. Next time I will continue with more discussion of semantic roles. Here’s an ordinary English sentence: “The shortstop caught the … Continue reading Deep Structure Semantic Roles

This week it is my pleasure to present a Guest Essay on Egyptian Hieroglyphics by Dr. Robert Fisher. Dr. Fisher received his PhD in Indo-European Studies (1973) from UCLA, and he has taught historical linguistics and writing systems at York University. He has written about the Indo-European language family, Indo-European mythology, and the “Altaic” group … Continue reading A Guest Essay on Egyptian Hieroglyphs