Lend us a word, mate

With the history of the English language at the forefront of our minds on the A2 course at the moment, this article was a timely find. The article reviews a new book, The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English by Henry Hitchings, and focuses in particular on the wide variety of foreign loanwards that have worked their way into the English language for one reason or another over the centuries. As well as citing some of the usual suspects (Latin, Old Norse, French), the reviewer highlights some of the other languages that have so generously donated their lexemes to our beloved tongue - among them Turkish, Arabic and Dutch. As the reviewer points out, this rich linguistic history reflects and indeed emphasises the multifaceted nature of Britain's social, political and economic history.

Having worked through some examples of words that have come into English from other languages, the reviewer touches on some of the attitudes that are often expressed about the proliferation of foreign loanwords in English. He comments that English has never been short of its "furious defenders against foreign corruption", an observation about 'linguistic gatekeeping' that links very nicely with a couple of other articles that I found recently - this time not about words but about spelling.

This one talks about "the utter irrationality of British spelling", commenting on the somewhat controversial views of John Wells, a professor of phonetics and president of the Spelling Society, before going on to discuss in detail the arguments for and against spelling reform. Professor Wells argues:

"Let's allow people greater freedom to spell logically," adding, "Have we really
nothing better to do with our lives than fret about the apostrophe?"

You can read more about Professor Wells' (Wells's?) views in another recent article, which focuses on - among other issues - the use, misuse and abuse of the apostrophe. This third article adds further detail to the same story.

To round off this posting on language change and people's attitudes towards it, you might like to have a look at this article, which reports on some of the new slang words that have earnt their place in the pages of the latest Oxford English Dictionary of Modern Slang. The only thing I'll say is that I cannot be held responsible for the image that they've chosen to accompany their story, nor for the feelings of revulsion that are certain to ensue. Enjoy.