Old English to Modern English

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with Old English to Modern English. The Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians arrived on our shores from the fifth century AD. They brought with them the basis of our culture and a language which we refer to as Old English. Over the next 1,500 years influences principally from the Scandinavian and French tongues took this to Middle English and eventually to Modern English. English is the most diverse language and this is not simply down to the number of words adopted from quite unrelated tongues, a remnant of colonial days. There is a reason why English, more than any other, needs a thesaurus - indeed most languages never bother publishing a thesaurus (Japanese is a notable exception). That English has been influenced by so many others has led to such a great number of alternative words. Learn how these came began, where they came from and, most interestingly, how they evolved, how the meanings changed and developed to become the language we know today. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required.

The letter A is for an used in such things as ‘an egg’ instead of ‘a’ when the following noun begins with a vowel. However, it actually began as ‘one’ hence ‘one egg’ and the use of ‘a’ actually the loss of the following ‘n’. Note it is difficult to say AN LEG, AN HORSE, AN BOTTLE) but Old English would have been pronounced as AYN LEG, AYN HORSE, AYN BOTTLE which is rather easier. The same thing is seen in anfeld which may have been used to mean ‘simple’ but actually comes from ‘one-fold’ as in ‘once’.

The letter C is for ceap meaning ‘market’ and which also gave geceapian ‘to buy’. Now today we look for things on the cheap at the market, where originally they would market things at the cheap. Note we say ‘on the cheap’ to mean ‘cheaply’ – on the cheap meaning ‘on the market’. And this is still seen in place names such as Chipping Norton, Chipping Sodbury and street names such as Cheap Street and Cheapside.

The Letter K is for nothing, no not a silent ‘k’ but a letter coming to modern English from the Scandinavian languages. Incidentally the silent ‘K’ is a modern idea – once we had k-nights, and k-nives, but nobody wore k-nickers as this was originally knickerbockers and even that word unknown before 1859. This was not what you were expecting when I mentioned knickerbockers – admit it.

The letter Q is French and did not appear in Old English. Oddly the word ‘queue’, albeit with a spelling of c-u-e, appeared in English before the Norman invasion. It was used to describe a ‘tail’ (and other long parts of the mammalian anatomy), and first used to refer to a line of people in 1837, some 350 years after the first queues were named as ‘lines of dancers’.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.

French Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘Chinese’ and now look at ‘French’ – albeit many of these will have little association with our neighbours across the English Channel.

French dressing is first seen in 1860 and, as with most of these, the meaning is really ‘foreign’ (try replacing ‘French’ with ‘foreign’ for some of the following, mildly amusing).

French toast has been known since the 1630s.But just what is French toast? As a youngster we always referred to French toast as bread only toasted one side (grill or using a toasting fork) with the untoasted side then buttered. Latterly it is bread dipped in a egg and milk mixture and fried (also known as eggy bread, Bombay toast, gypsy toast, or best of all Poor Knights of Windsor), which I would argue isn't even toast.

French letter has been used since 1856 – and when I say ‘used’, I am referring to the phrase, of course.

French kiss is first seen in 1749 when it appears in the phrase ‘French novel’. Note in the late 19th and early 20th centuries a ‘French kiss’ was a kiss on each cheek.

French doors (or French windows) were first described as such in 1847.

French leave, that is to depart without informing the host, is first seen in 1771 – while the French use filer a ‘l’anglaise meaning ‘to take English leave’.

French fries appears for the first time in 1903, these originally referred to as ‘French fried potatoes’ in 1856. Furthermore, in 1944 the term ‘French frieds’ was used, although it did not catch on, unlike simply ‘fries’ which dates from 1973.

French stick might be a little dated today, we tend to use ‘baguette’, although the French use ‘unsandwich’ to describe the same thing - correctly it isn't a sandwich but a roll of bread stuffed with a filling, while a sandwich is 'sandwiched' between two slices of bread.

French maids are stereotypically wearing that black and white uniform from the 19th century, although the term did not become popular in Britain until the advent of the bedroom farce.

French beans are first described as such in the middle of the 19th century, although these were introduced to Europe and Africa by the Spanish and Portuguese.

French poodles were first bred in Germany in the 15th century for duck hunting. They are known as ‘French’ because the poodle was first identified as a distinct breed in France.

French braid is first used in the 1871 issue of Arthur’s Home Magazine, although the hairstyle was certainly known 3,500 years ago in Greece and Egypt.

French cleaner was an early term for dry cleaning, an error around 1850 by Jean Baptiste Jolly.

French knickers were first worn and known as such in the 1920s.