Off topic: Site dedicated to Dead words in English Thread poster: RominaZ
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RominaZ 
Argentina
English to Spanish
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The Dead Words site rediscovers and interprets stories of dead words. All letterings in there are words that were once used in English.
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Most of them have such musicality that it is a shame to lose them.
| | | | | fonts are bothersome | Jun 25, 2012 |
Interesting, fun, but they need to lose the fonts in favor of a single more readable one.
| | | | Peter Linton (X)
Local time: 21:44
Swedish to English
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| Reviving dead words | Jun 25, 2012 |
There are a couple of dead words in English that I would like to restore to life. They are "one” and “wera”. The first one you have certainly seen, but it's usage is restricted by fashion. The second one you have probably never seen, but you have seen its offspring.
It's a pity that "one" has been pushed aside, and now sounds "stilted and precious" – unlike its French and German equivalents.. It has the big advantage of not being gender-specific, a valuable asset in these po... See more There are a couple of dead words in English that I would like to restore to life. They are "one” and “wera”. The first one you have certainly seen, but it's usage is restricted by fashion. The second one you have probably never seen, but you have seen its offspring.
It's a pity that "one" has been pushed aside, and now sounds "stilted and precious" – unlike its French and German equivalents.. It has the big advantage of not being gender-specific, a valuable asset in these politically correct days. If you were designing a language from scratch right now, you would surely include "one" as a convenient, indeed essential, pronoun.
Another valuable revival would be "were" -- not the verb, but the Old English noun meaning "male person". It has an impeccable Indo-European heritage, found in Sanskrit, and appearing in Latin as "vir", root of "virile". If we revived "were", we could restore that misunderstood word "man" to its rightful meaning of "human being", not specifically a male of the species. Then other words would make more sense, such as "mankind" which really means “humankind”. We could also avoid such nonsense as regarding a "chairman" as distinctively male, and therefore having to describe someone as "Chair" of a committee to avoid using that word “man”.
The word "woman" would also make sense -- originally a "wif-man", or female human being. That 10th century Old English poem Beowulf speaks of "wera and wifa".
Though "were" itself has disappeared, it survives in some interesting guises, such as "werewolf", and more surprisingly, in "world", originally "were - ald", meaning "age or life of man". That's why we speak of "this world" (earth) and "the next world" (heaven). But I doubt if this will happen during my time in this world. Perhaps in the next world. ▲ Collapse
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 22:44
Spanish to English
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Peter Linton wrote:
There are a couple of dead words in English that I would like to restore to life. They are "one” ...
It's a pity that "one" has been pushed aside, and now sounds "stilted and precious" – unlike its French and German equivalents.. It has the big advantage of not being gender-specific, a valuable asset in these politically correct days. If you were designing a language from scratch right now, you would surely include "one" as a convenient, indeed essential, pronoun.
One totally agrees. And sometimes one might actually WANT to come across "stilted and precious", for whatever reason. I certainly do.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 22:44
Spanish to English
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Werner Maurer wrote:
Interesting, fun, but they need to lose the fonts in favor of a single more readable one.
Two words of agreement here: Ill - egible.
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