I don’t want to make anyone sick with this video (lest you dislike him), but in it, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson does some political shtick. But as part of that, he uses the Anglish word heartsick instead of the Latinate extremely depressed. What a great word.
© 2022 Bryan A. J. Parry
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Anglish, vocab, words | Tagged: anglish, Anglo-Saxonism, conlang, inkpot, linguistic purism, plain English, pure English, Putin's War, Russia, Russia Ukraine War, Saxon English, Saxonism, Ukraine, vocab, War in Ukraine | 
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Posted by bryanajparry
In America they have this thing called “Arbor Day”. It’s where they celebrate the wonder that is the tree. I love trees and celebrate them every day, a big part of my daily walks are just taking in and appreciating the trees. Not sure why we need to wait for the special day. Anyway, they call it “Arbor Day” because “arbor” is Latin for “tree”. But my thought has always been, “why not just call it ‘Tree Day’?”
Speaking of which, we have this word in English “arboretum“. I’ve never understood this word. I mean, the point of it, that is. It’s a “tree yard”, right, so let’s call it a treeyard, because that is what it is.
© 2021 Bryan A. J. Parry
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1 Comment | Anglish, Hidden Words, vocab, words | Tagged: anglish, Anglo-Saxonism, conlang, inkpot, linguistic purism, plain English, pure English, Saxon English, Saxonism, vocab | Permalink
Posted by bryanajparry
Here are more words from my notes, another hodgepodge of randomness. These are all words which are attested with these meanings in standard English. Enjoy!
roup Scot, Northern sell by auction, an auction
redden rubefy, tubify
ruddy rubicund
meter ruler, measuring thing
behest command
behindhand opp. of beforehand
beholden under obligation
behoof
befool dupe
beget procreate
belike probably
belittle depreciate
jut projection
-house -ary (in a place sense, mortuary, library)
brawn muscle
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1 Comment | Anglish, artlang, conlang, Germanic, inkpot, linguistic purism, Old English, Plain English, vocab, words | Tagged: anglish, Anglo-Saxonism, conlang, inkpot, linguistic purism, plain English, pure English, Saxon English, Saxonism, vocab | Permalink
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Why say suspicious when you can say fishy? It’s a much more evocative word! This sense of fishy seems to come from the notion of slipperiness.
© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry
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Leave a Comment » | Anglish, artlang, conlang, Germanic, inkpot, Plain English | Tagged: Andrew Neil, anglish, artlang, BBC, conlang, Germanic, inkpot, linguistic purism, plain English, pure English, purism, Saxon English, Saxonism | Permalink
Posted by bryanajparry
Andrew Neil is a wonderful journalist and interviewer, but what is not wonderful was the use of the word “adumbrate” which he used on the 25th of September 2020. What does “adumbrate” mean? It’s from the Latin adumbrat- meaning “shaded, shadowed”. It has three meanings in English: to overshadow, to foreshadow, and to outline. What is wrong with these fine Saxon words? Nothing. Let’s bin off this Latin monster and use our plain English instead.
© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry
2 Comments | Anglish, artlang, conlang, Germanic, inkpot, linguistic purism, Plain English | Tagged: adumbrate, Andrew Neil, anglish, BBC, plain English, pure English, purism, Saxon English, Saxonism | Permalink
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“John’s so sensitive!”
“Ouch! My teeth are really sensitive!”
If you (or your teeth) are sensitive, it means they have a lot of feeling. They’re really full of feeling. That is, they are feelingful.
“You’re more feelingful than your brother”
“He’s the most feelingful person I know!”
NOT: feelingfuller, feelingfullest. We don’t say “resentfuller” or “beautifullest”.
The negative can be formed with un-: unfeelingful. That is, “insensitive”.
That’s it! A new English word for you formed totally regularly from the tools already available to us.
© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry
featured image from http://www.montefioredental.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/00435bab9971eb51bb1271da04831f20.jpg
5 Comments | 1066, Anglish, conlang, Germanic, glossopoeia, inkpot, linguistic purism, vocab, words | Tagged: #PlainEnglish, 1066, 1066 and all that, anglicisation, anglish, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Saxonism, artlang, conlang, English, feelingful, how we'd talk if William had lost at Hastings, inkpot, linguistic purism, plain English, Roots English, Saxon English, Saxonism | Permalink
Posted by bryanajparry
Here are two lovely words we don’t hear enough: turnkey and sawbones. We may not hear them much nowadays, but their meaning is clear: “jailor” and “surgeon”. You might have wondered or forgotten why the doctor from the original Star Trek was nicknamed “Bones”; well, here’s the reason. I just cannot get enough of lively words like these that bring a strong image to your mind’s eye. Why use the Latinate, more usual alternatives, when we have this kind of brilliant language to use instead?
© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry
featured image from http://www.treknews.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/deforest-kelley-bones-star-trek.jpg
Leave a Comment » | Anglish, conlang, linguistic purism, Uncategorized, vocab, words | Tagged: 1066 and all that, anglish, Anglo-Saxonism, conlang, sawbones, Saxon English, Saxonism, Star Trek, turnkey, vocabulary | Permalink
Posted by bryanajparry
This little blog of mine, Wrixlings / www.pureenglish.com, regularly gets dozens of hits a day and hundreds of hits a month. Given that I do not advertise this site, and I only tend to update it once or twice a month, and bearing in mind that it centres on a highly niche topic — a pure Saxon English –, I find the readership to be quite unbelievable.
So thank you to everyone who reads and (hopefully) enjoys this website every day! I dream of taking this site to the next level in more ways than one, but I just cannot find the time right now. “Anglish” is a lifetime obsession of mine, a meme I just cannot shake. I hope you all keep up this hobby (?mania) and carry on following this site.
My thanks to you all again!
© 2018 Bryan A. J. Parry
Leave a Comment » | sundry | Tagged: anglish, Anglo-Saxonism, artlang, conlang, linguistic purism, pure English, Saxon, Saxon English, Saxonism, sundry, wrixlings | Permalink
Posted by bryanajparry
Shipwright, cartwright, wheelwright, playwright (not “playwrite”!).
The word “wright” is related to wrought and work. A wright is, in short, a worker. But as you can tell from the above words, “wright” really implies a kind of craftsman or skilled worker, not just a regular slogger. This is clearly a useful word, but only pops up in these historic and set formations, and as a last name (Ian Wright! Wright! Wright!).
This nameword (noun) comes from the deedword/workword (verb) to work. But given the difference between a mere “worker” and the noble “wright”, we might wish to backform a new verb to wright, meaning to work in the specific sense of crafting or as a craftsman.
Let’s take this potentially useful nameword wright, and our new idea of the deedword to wright, and see how we can use them.
A carpenter (from the Latin root carpentum) is someone who works wood, but with the craft-like connotations. Woodworker is a nice formation; indeed, I try to smuggle this word into everyday talk. Woodcrafter or woodcraftsman work, too, altho I feel not as well. Workwood, like turnkey or sawbones, are also fairly neat Saxon alternatives to “carpenter”. But I think woodwright really gets to the craftsmanlike aspect in an unambiguous way. Old English had the form treowwyrhta, which is literally “tree-wright”.
What about the stone mason? “Mason” itself is Old French masson of unclear parentage; it may ultimately be from a German tongue or Latin matio. Surely, we could say stonewright instead. Indeed, the Old English word was stanwyrhta “stone-wright”. Personally, I really like the sound of this even more so than the above alternatives to “carpenter”.
Maybe “wright” could be regularly treated as the English equivalent to Greek tekton as found in architect. Therefore, perhaps architect could be buildingwright? The following words also work, but are more unwieldy: buildingcrafter and buildingcraftsman. Old English had the nice form heahcræftiga “high-crafter”, but maybe that wouldn’t be as self-clear as “buildingwright”.
© 2018 Bryan A. J. Parry
featured image from http://thecarpenterandthecook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Carpenter.jpg
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Posted by bryanajparry
Wrixlings 
Quick Comment: Addicting
August 28, 2022Every time I hear the Americanism “addicting”, I am at first momentarily baffled, and then physically sickened. Just say “addictive”!
But let’s set aside our nationalist preferences. We don’t say “sportive” but “sporting/sporty”, so why wouldn’t we say the plainer, albeit not totally Saxon, “addicting”?
© 2022 Bryan A. J. Parry
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