The English Language

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
AugMasonicus introduced "sexposition" to another thread recently - I didn't think it was a word, but sure enough - it has legitimacy....

Never doubt my knowledge of all things sex.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Oh crap I didn't see you come into the room.


Sorry about that. Talking behind your back.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I'm a Mason, I just need to tap into our satellite feed and it shows me everything.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Oh that's right. And "no girls!" is on the sign tacked to the door. *sigh* I remain at your mercy, good sir and valiant.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Oh that's right. And "no girls!" is on the sign tacked to the door. *sigh* I remain at your mercy, good sir and valiant.

That's only on the lodge room door. The Boom Boom Room is open to everyone.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

oh okay

I am a total stranger stranded in your strange and foreign land without a map, though - remember that. The Boom Boom Room is....where?

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
I am a total stranger stranded in your strange and foreign land without a map, though - remember that. The Boom Boom Room is....where?

In the cellar next to the food prep area.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: alldaylong
But only in the sense, I think, that he was the first person to use them in print. I believe the idea that he "invented" them all was a misunderstanding.

Here are SOME of the new words Shakespeare put into The English Language:-

www.shakespeare-online.com...

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

right.... by the potato bin then. Gotcha.

a reply to: alldaylong


Yeah! You tell him!!!

You live there - I'll take a local's word for it then.
alldaylong lives in Stratford-Upon-Avon, everyone!

That's another topic Bill Bryson writes about:

Shakespeare: The World As Stage

just c/p that to any search bar and you'll see dozens of ways to get there....

Great thread idea!
I love words that don't normally make their way into conversation. (See my custom title and current mood).
Mostly I love to learn slang unique to individual places. No matter the word or phrase to be sure somebody has shortened it to make it easier to say, or added humor to it. (Intrepid, almost had a Canuck "u" incident there).
It's funny to hear some of the dialect when you are traveling and in unfamiliar territory, and nothing makes you stand out more like a tourist than to misunderstand what a local is saying to you.
For instance, and this is not to single any place out, I just happen to be partial to Newfoundland accent...

a reply to: AccessDenied

Very cool!! I'll watch it momentarily.

I've been having a grand old audible party watching hinterland on netflix - the Welsh accent is so lovely. I'm learning to mimic it a little bit.


ETA! Omg! The girl who introduces the show looks just like my daughter (except for hair color)......
anyway - here we go....



Yeah, see - this type of video will help unite people all over the world! Like the 'phone-a-Dane' thing -
it's very exciting, I think. Used to be I was one of very few weirdos who "majored in Spanish :/ " - but now, boy howdy it comes in very handy indeed!
Our kids complain now that we didn't teach it to them (their dad and I are both bilingual, we were in classes together and moved in the same party circles back in 1980..that's how we met).

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
I invent words all the time, though, DISRAELI. They don't wind up in dictionaries, though. So - who knows.
I believe whoever wrote the body of work under Shakespeare's moniker was a literary genius. People make up words all the time.

Let me offer a more modern example of what might have been happening.
At some point in the Sixties, the OED decided to add the abbreviation "ciggie" to their list of words. The story was in the news because one of the Beatles had used the word in a press interview, and that was being cited as the source. Older working-class men were reacting with indignation; "Of course the Beatles didn't invent that word. We were using it all the time during the war". Yes sir, but your casual conversations during the war were not being recorded in print. The OED was doing what dictionaries have always done, citing the first written evidence available to them, which happened to be that interview.
I'm inclined to think the same is true about most of the "new words" found in Shakespeare. They were already in common use amongst people who had no occasion to put them down in writing.

In other words, part of the uniqueness of Shakespeare is that he had an ear for the language of ordinary people (being one of them himself), which he would exuberantly import into the language of his plays.

originally posted by: alldaylong
Here are SOME of the new words Shakespeare put into The English Language:-

www.shakespeare-online.com...

I don't question that he added new words to the written language.
My query is about how many of them were words he coined himself, and how many of them were words which he heard or overheard in conversation, giving him the chance to be the first person to use them in writing.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Okay, you win. Yes, every child invents words, and so do kids, adults, communities, etc.

My daughter said: "Himadoe!"
and "Hoe-new" -
and "Wunyoo"


"Mucher" is one my little boy came up with: "Mom, I need mucher dan datt!"

So... okay. I read a novel a couple of years ago - a mystery about who Shakespeare really was: a battle that is still ongoing in academia.
Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Carrell.

Anyway, back to the arrival of "new" words: will Himadoe, Wunyoo, and Hoe-new ever be in dictionaries? Maybe. I read a really cool article not long ago (in The Atlantic, I believe?) about a guy who is the most often hired to invent languages for sci-fi/fantasy films.

How fun would that be?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That or a Foley Artist. Too much fun. If anyone knows of any volunteer opps or entry-level routes, please let me know! Seasonal, temporary, whatever. There's a movie going to be shot near my hometown real soon - maybe I'll watch for casting/hiring offered to the locals. ....

actually Bryson claimed that Etruscan was still 'tantalizingly' untranslated in The Mother Tongue.....is Etruscan still up for deciphering/decoding?

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
Child-invented words; As my six-year old self once told my mother "I'm being helptual".

a reply to: DISRAELI

Yep! The little girl I nannied from birth would say, "I'm being cooperation; amn't I ?"

I taught horseback riding and handling also - one student, after I told the horse to "behave!" said to me, "I'm being have, though, right?"

Oh - and one other I meant to mention before - to be charged with "affray" - hmmmm!!!! O_o Heard it on Hinterland.

"Affray" - a long lost ancestor of "afraid?"

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
actually Bryson claimed that Etruscan was still 'tantalizingly' untranslated in The Mother Tongue.....is Etruscan still up for deciphering/decoding?

"The Etruscan language", by Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante, Manchester University Press, 1983, 2002.
The 2002 paperback is on my bookshelves.
It has an extensive Etruscan-English glossary, based mainly on tomb inscriptions, and a discussion of what they have deduced about the basic grammar.

From this I managed to put together my own English-Etruscan glossary, because I wanted to write someone a birthday poem.
Unfortunately nothing is known about the rules of Etruscan poetry, so I had to invent some.
I decided that each line would have the same number of syllables, and each stanza would have three lines. That was it.
Enough is known about the language for me to be able to write nine lines saying, roughly "Come together all you citizens, all you inhabitants of the villages. X is X years old today. Rejoice, bring food and presents, pour out the wine".

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
"Affray" - a long lost ancestor of "afraid?"

Yes, my dictionary gives them the same origin.
The form "fray" is still in use, at least in the expression "entering the fray" (joining in the fight).

a reply to: DISRAELI

ah!! Of course!! Thanks for that.
Anyway -- logging off now, but enjoying this thread. Recommend Bryson's book as mentioned above.

It would be so fun to have everyone pop on here when they invent a word - just to share it with us!!!
We could start using it (like "pipped", for example) and get famous as the Founding Forumers (see? There's one! Forumers!)
of ATSpeak.

LOL!!!