English Nerd Facts

This time I have a very short but still interesting (I hope...) ENF for you:

Dummy-Do only became part of the English language in the time where Early Modern English was spoken which was between 1500 and 1700 and even during that time it was often considered optional.

Have a great day,
The Countess

English Nerd Facts

I wanted to share some absolutely irrelevant facts about English with you:

• The vanishing of old words in a language is called 'Obsolescence'.
• BBC-English is not the same as RP-English (also known as Queen's English) anymore. The BBC actually does allow very mild forms of regional accents while Received Pronounciation is accent free.
• In Early Modern English various verbs could be used for the perfective aspect, today we can only use 'have' as in 'I have arrived'. An example for the use in early Modern English would be 'Though art come' or 'I am arrived'.
• V and u used to be pronounced the other way round. Example: loue=love, neuer=never, vnderstand=understand
  
  
  These are things that absolutely nobody needs to know but I still like those little facts alot!
  
  
  Have a great day,
  The Countess

English Nerd Facts: Knicht

I am not only a history student, I also study English. It isn't my native language but I still learned quite a few cool things, especially in my Old English and Early Modern English classes. So today I have a little fun fact for you:

Did you know the Old English word "knicht" existed in Old German as well? It both meant "horse rider". That itself would not be very interesting, I admit. BUT:

As time went one the two languages developed and "knicht" became "knight" in English and "Knecht" in German. "Knecht" means "farm labourer" in English. So basically, the term has gone up in hirarchy in the English language while it has gone down in German. This difference in meaning can be found in nearly every single word that the two languages had in common and that changed meaning during the time. 

Have a great day,

The Countess