1. Year (noun)- "A period of 365 or 366 days, in the Gregorian calendar, divided into 12 calendar months, now reckoned as beginning Jan. 1 and ending Dec. 21 (calendar year)."
According to Dictionary.com, the word 'year' originated before 900. In Middle English the word was pronounced yeer, and in Old English it was gēar.
2. From (preposition)- specify a starting place in spatial movement.
According to pause.wcu.edu, from came from fro as in to and fro. This is very similar to the definition we have now because it shows direction. Fro is most similar to from, the world that we have today. The sounds are all the same except we added the consonant 'm' to to the end of the word. The meaning stayed the same, but adding the 'm to the end of the word changed how we pronounce the word.
Origin: before 950, also a variant of fram. Old English fram, originally "forward movement, advancement,"evolving into sense of "movement away."
3. Courage (noun)- "the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to facedifficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery."
According to pause.wcu.com, in Middle English courage was spelled corage. That is pronounced co-rage, which is why in Modern English we added a 'u' to make it a more complete vowel sound.
Origin: 1250-1300, the Middle English word corage came from the Old French word cuer, which means heart. This makes sense because the definition of courage is having a strong heart.
4. Conceal (verb)- "to hide; withdraw or remove from observation; cover or keep from sight."
According to dictionary.com, the word conceal came form the Middle English word concelen which came from the Anglo French word conceler, which meant 'to hide.' This makes sense because the word conceal means to remove to withdraw (to hide).
Origin: 1275–1325, According to pause.wcu.edu, the Middle English word conceal was spelled conseil. The word sounds the same but evolved into a different spelling. The word conceal is a hard word to teach to students because it is hard to sound out the sounds in the word. It made more sense when it had an 's' in the word.
5. Sorely (adverb): "in a painful manner."
According to Dictionary.com, the word sorely came from the Old English word sārlīce and the Middle English word sarely and soreli.
According to pause.wcu.edu, the word sorely came from the Middle English word sore and soore. The word we have now is very similar because the word sore is spelled the same we just added 'ly' to make it an adverb. This is an easier way to manipulate words to make them work with conventional language. The word soore focuses on the double o sound which is not the sound we use today to say the word sorely.
Interesting information, Stephanie! You gave very detailed histories of the words you chose. I found this assignment challenging to complete. For many words, it was easy to find the origins, but difficult to find how and why they evolved the way they did. I also found that the history of words may be useful with older students, but I think it may actually confuse younger students even more with spellings. However, I did find the histories helpful for myself. Some of the information helped me understand our current spelling rules and patterns better than I previously had.
ReplyDeleteHi Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteNice selection of words—I spent quite a lot of time finding the histories of many words. It seemed like so many of the words I thought of weren’t old enough to reach back so far into the history of the English language. I especially like your selection of “from,” because so many students hear people say “to and fro,” and they have no idea how the expression originated. I know that as a teacher I take those historical references for granted without deliberately stopping to explain to my students how these expressions came to be. It’s interesting to see how pronunciation has changed over the years to what we’re accustomed to today as readers, writers, and speakers.