Nearly all nouns have different singular and plural forms. I have one cat; he has two cats. I ate five apples; he had one apple. Nouns with a plural and a singular form are called variable nouns. Most variable nouns form the plural by taking an -s at the end. The added -s is called […][...]
Archive for the ‘old english’ Category
September 24th, 2009 - 5:56 pm § in mysteries of english, old english, plurals, spelling, word origins
How many nouns?
September 18th, 2009 - 6:55 am § in etymology, mysteries of english, old english, vocabulary, words of the day
Words of the Day (9/18)
Every Friday I post a few of my favorite etymologies and vocab words. Check out all my Words of the Day posts HERE. Etymologies: Avocado: (noun. A pear-shaped fruit with a rough leathery skin, smooth oily flesh, and a large stone.) The Aztecs first called this fruit the ahucatl (testicle). It was c[...]
September 17th, 2009 - 10:19 am § in language evolution, old english
Language Transformation
People evolve. Technology evolves. Art evolves. And language certainly evolves. This is a tricky topic. There are pundits who criticize speech as being riddled with “errors” and “incorrect grammar”. I’m often one of them. We say people are lazy or uneducated if they can[...]
Basic Color Terms – Germanic & Old English
Today’s topic: color terms. But first, a brief lesson… The Indo-European languages are a family of languages spoken in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The languages can be broken down into branches, such as: Anatolian, Indo-Iranian (like Iranian), Greek, Italic (Italian, French, etc&#[...]