Here’s a good word-swap for you. The word obedient has the Saxon alternative hearsome — which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Therefore, the word obedience can be got rid of in favour of hearsomeness. But would could the equivalent for obey be? Do what I say? Hear-do? What do you think it could be?
Every 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”?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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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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