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【The History ofEnglish in Ten Minutes】No.1 Anglo-Saxon
The 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„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 gloary 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 – poibly 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 endle 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‟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 hopele 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
