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【The History of English in Ten Minutes】No.1 Anglo-SaxonThe History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter 1. Anglo-Saxon or whatever happen to the Jutes.
The English language begins with the phrase ‘Up Yours Caesar!’ as the Romans leave Britain and a lot of Germanic tribes start flooding in, tribes such as the Angles and the Saxons – who together gave us the term Anglo-Saxon, and the Jutes – who didn’t.
The Romans left some very straight roads behind, but not much of their Latin language. The Anglo-Saxon vocab was much more useful as it was mainly words for simple everyday things like ‘house’, ‘woman’, ‘loaf’ and ‘werewolf’.
Four of our days of the week - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were named in honour of Anglo-Saxon gods, but they didn’t bother with Saturday, Sunday and Monday as they had all gone off for a long weekend. While they were away, Christian missionaries stole in bringing with them leaflets about jumble sales and more Latin. Christianity was a hit with the locals and made them much happier to take on funky new words like ‘martyr’, ‘bishop’ and ‘font’.
Along came the Vikings, with their action-man words like ‘drag’, ‘ransack’, ‘thrust’ and ‘die’, and a love of pickled herring. They may have raped and pillaged but there were also into ‘give’ and ‘take’ – two of around 2000 words that they gave English, as well as the phrase ‘watch out for that man with the enormous axe.’
【The History of English in Ten Minutes】No.2 The Norman Conquest
The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter Two, The Norman Conquest or Excuse My English.
1066. True to his name, William the Conqueror invades England, bringing new concepts from across the channel, like the French language, the Doomsday Book and the duty-free Galois's multipack.French was "de rigueur" for all official business, with words like "judge", "jury", "evidence" and "justice" coming in and giving John Grisham's career a kick-start. Latin was still used "ad nauseam" in church, but the common man spoke English, able to communicate only by speaking more slowly and loudly until the others understood him. Words like "cow", "sheep" and "swine" come from the English-speaking farmers. While the "a la carte" versions "beef", "mutton" and "pork" come from the French-speaking toffs, beginning a long-running trend of restaurants having completely indecipherable menus. All in all, the English absorbed about 10,000 new words from the Normans, though they still couldn't grasp the rules of cheek kissing. The "bon-ami" all ended when the English nation took their new warlike lingo of "armies", "navies" and "soldiers" and began the Hundred Years' War against France. It actually lasted 116 years but by that point, no one could count any higher in French and English took over as the language of power.
【The History of English in Ten Minutes】No.3 Shakespeare
The history of English in ten minutes. Chapter three, Shakespeare, or a plaque on both his houses.
As the dictionary tells us about 2,000 new words and phrases were invented by William Shakespeare. He gave us handy words like eyeball, puppydog and anchovy and more show-offy words like dauntless, besmirch and lacklustre. He came up with the word alligator soon after he ran out of the things to rhyme with crocodile. And the nation of tea drinkers finally took into their hearts when he invented the hob-nob. Shakespeare knew the power of catchphrases as well as biscuits. Without him, we would never eat our flesh and blood out of house and home. We would have to say good riddance to the green-eyed monster and breaking the ice would be as dead as a doornail.
If you tried to get your money's worth, you'd be given short shrift and anyone who laid it on with a trowel could be hoised with his own petard. Of course it's possible other people used these words first. But the dictionary writers like looking them up in Shakespeare because there was more cross dressing and people poking each other's eyes out. Shakespeare's poetry showed the world that English was a rich vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power and he still had time to open all those tea rooms in Stratford.
【The History of English in Ten Minutes】No.4 The King James Bible
The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter four. The King James Bible or light there be.
In 1611 ‘the powers that be’ ‘turned the world upside down’ with a ‘labour of love’ – a new translation of the bible. A team of scribes with the ‘wisdom of Solomon’ - ‘went the extra mile’ to make King James’s translation ‘all things to all men’, whether from their ‘heart’s desire’ ‘to fight the good fight’ or just for the ‘filthy lucre’. This sexy new Bible went ‘from strength to strength’, getting to ‘the root of the matter’ in a language even ‘the salt of the earth’ could understand. ‘The writing wasn’t on the wall’, it was in handy little books and with ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers reading from it in every church, its words and phrases ‘took root’ ‘to the ends of the earth’ – well at least the ends of Britain. The King James Bible is the book that taught us that ‘a leopard can’t change its spots’, that ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, that ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is harder to spot than you would imagine, and how annoying it is to have ‘a fly in your ointment’. In fact, just as ‘Jonathan begat Meribbaal; and Meribbaal begat Micah. And Micah begat Pithon’, the King James Bible begat a whole glossary of metaphor and morality that still shapes the way English is spoken today. Amen.
【English in Ten Minutes】No.5 Science
The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter five. The English of Science or how to speak with gravity. Before the 17th Century scientists weren’t really recognised – possibly because lab-coats had yet to catch on.
But suddenly Britain was full of physicists – there was Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle – and even some people not called Robert, like Isaac Newton. The Royal Society was formed out of the Invisible College – after they put it down somewhere and couldn’t find it again.
At first they worked in Latin. After sitting through Newton’s story about the ‘pomum’ falling to the ‘terra’ from the ‘arbor’ for the umpteenth time, the bright sparks realised they all spoke English and could transform our understanding of the universe much quicker by talking in their own language.
But science was discovering things faster than they could name them. Words like ‘acid’, ‘gravity’, ‘electricity and ‘pendulum’ had to be invented just to stop their meetings turning into an endless game of charades. Like teenage boys, the scientists suddenly became aware of the human body – coining new words like ‘cardiac’ and ‘tonsil’, ‘ovary’, and ‘sternum’ - and the invention of ‘penis’ (1693), ‘vagina’ (1682) made sex education classes a bit easier to follow. Though and ‘clitoris’ was still a source of confusion.
【The History of English in Ten Minutes】No.6 English and Empire
The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter six. English and Empire or the sun never set on the English language.
With English making its name as the language of science, the Bible and Shakespeare, Britain decided to take it on tour.
Asking only for land, wealth, natural resources, total obedience to the crown and a few local words in return.
They went to the Caribbean looking for gold and a chance to really unwind – discovering the ‘barbeque’, the ‘canoe’ and a pretty good recipe for rum punch. They also brought back the word ‘cannibal’ to make their trip sound more exciting.
In India there was something for everyone. ‘Yoga’ – to help you stay in shape, while pretending to be spiritual. If that didn’t work there was the ‘cummerbund’ to hide a paunch and - if you couldn’t even make it up the stairs without turning ‘crimson’ – they had the ‘bungalow’.
Meanwhile in Africa they picked up words like ‘voodoo’ and ‘zombie’ – kicking off the teen horror film – and even more terrifying, they brought home the world’s two most annoying musical instruments – the ‘bongo’ and the ‘banjo’. From Australia, English took the words ‘nugget’, ‘boomerang’ and ‘walkabout’ - and in fact the whole concept of chain pubs.
Between toppling Napoleon (1815) and the first World War (1914), the British Empire gobbled up around 10 millions square miles, 400 million people and nearly a hundred thousand gin and tonics, leaving new varieties of English to develop all over the globe.
【English in Ten Minutes】The age of dictionary or the definition of a hopeless task. With English expanding in all directions came a new breed of man called lexicographers, who wanted to put an end to this anarchy a word they defined as what happens when people spell words slightly differently from each other. One of the greatest was doctor Johnson, whose Dictionary of English Language which took him 9 years to write. It was 18 inches tall and contained 42,773 entries meaning that even if you couldn’t read it’s still pretty useful if you want to reach a high shelf. For the first time when people were calling you a “pickle herring”, ”a jobbernowl ” or a “fopdoodle” you could understand exactly what they meant and you’d have the standard spelling. Try as he might to stop them, words kept being invented and in 1857 a new book was started which would become the Oxford English dictionary. It took another 70 years to be finished after the first editor resigned to be an archbishop, The second died of TB and the third was so boring that half his volunteers quit and one of them ended up in an Asylum. It eventually appeared in 1928 and has continued to be revised ever since proving the whole idea that you can stop people making up word is complete snuffbumble
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