A cooker is a person who cooks, right? No, it’s the machine. This is a mistake that outlanders often make when trying to use English. The reason? In English, -er can be the person or the machine. We do have another suffix, however, albeit it one that we no longer productively use, which only refers to a tool. It is the instrumental suffix -le/-el which expresses tool or instrument. (Note: in modern English, it is usually -le except after <n>.)
The most common words still in use are handle (hand + le), thimble (thumb + le), spindle (spin + le, with an unetymological <d>) and ladle (lade ‘to load, to heap up’, still lives on in laden + –le). These nouns are noun + -le and verb + le.
Could we try making new words on this basis? Let’s give it a go and see how understandable they are. Try them out on folks and let me know. I’ll give it a go, too.
American English often strikes Britons as so rudimentary, so basic. I mean “rainboots”, really! Why not call them by their proper name as we Brits do: “Wellington boots” or “wellies” (see Bishop-shifting).
But if we are indeed in the business of Plain and Saxon English, why not go the American route (or “rout”, as it were; yet another example of the topic at hand)? These Americanisms are plainer and more Saxon after all.
Good bye Wellington boots, Autumn and aubergine. Hello rainboots, Fall and eggplant.
But when you look deeper, our American cousins often opt for bizarre Latinisms which just wouldn’t do in England: beverage instead of drink, faucet instead of tap, and vacation instead of holiday. I mean, why, why and why!?
Where does that leave us?
Well, if you are in favour of a plainer, more expressive (expressing? expressful?) Saxon English, you simply must go for a mid-Atlantic model. Ditch the patriotism and embrace the wider cause!
Here’s a good word-swap for you. The word obedient has the Saxon alternative hearsome — which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Therefore, the word obedience can be got rid of in favour of hearsomeness. But would could the equivalent for obey be? Do what I say? Hear-do? What do you think it could be?
Every time I hear the Americanism “addicting”, I am at first momentarily baffled, and then physically sickened. Just say “addictive”!
But let’s set aside our nationalist preferences. We don’t say “sportive” but “sporting/sporty”, so why wouldn’t we say the plainer, albeit not totally Saxon, “addicting”?
I don’t want to make anyone sick with this video (lest you dislike him), but in it, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson does some political shtick. But as part of that, he uses the Anglish word heartsick instead of the Latinate extremely depressed. What a great word.
In America they have this thing called “Arbor Day”. It’s where they celebrate the wonder that is the tree. I love trees and celebrate them every day, a big part of my daily walks are just taking in and appreciating the trees. Not sure why we need to wait for the special day. Anyway, they call it “Arbor Day” because “arbor” is Latin for “tree”. But my thought has always been, “why not just call it ‘Tree Day’?”
Speaking of which, we have this word in English “arboretum“. I’ve never understood this word. I mean, the point of it, that is. It’s a “tree yard”, right, so let’s call it a treeyard, because that is what it is.
Here are more words from my notes, another hodgepodge of randomness. These are all words which are attested with these meanings in standard English. Enjoy!
Wax and wane. This phrase means to increase and decrease, of the Moon mainly. So let’s stop saying increase when we can say wax, and let’s stop saying “decrease” when we can say wane. We can also say eke for increase, as in eke out, but I like to keep eke as a like-for-like (=equivalent) of augment, eke out being to over-augment or over-extend.
Wanze is another great albeit no-longer-used word. It is the verbal form of “wane” in the same way that “cleanse” comes from “clean”, using the Old English verb-from-noun/adjective-forming suffix -sian. But how could we use this with a distinct meaning to “wane”? In Middle English, as a transitive, awanze meant to impair, diminish, to cause to lessen, to emaciate. Intransitively, it could mean to waste or wither away. Perhaps this could be some niche for (a)wanze, as well.
English has the Latinate word contain. What does contain actually mean? Spanish, a Latin language, also has this verb, contener, yet in Spanish the meaning is self-clear: con “with” + tener “have/hold”. Literally, “with-have” or “with-hold” (although note that “withhold” has quite a different meaning in English).
How do Germanic languages form a word for “contain”? Well, Swedish has inhåller, lit. “in-hold”. Dutch has inhouden, lit. “in-hold”. And German has… enthalten, which means… you get the point.
It’s looking like “inhold” (with the preposition used as a prefix, like “behold”) or “hold in” (with the preposition separate from the word, like “look up”) are the best options.
This glass inholds/holds half a pint in.
Sounds pretty good to me. As does “withinhold” or “hold within”, which perhaps makes the meaning more explicit.
This bucket withinholds/holds a gallon within.
Although, the simpler “hold” and “have” or “can hold/have” would often work better.
This bucket can have/can hold a gallon.
Derived words are easily formed, such as inholder and inholding. Not to forget other words we could use instead, such as “holder” or “box”.
In any case, with the words have and hold, and the Germanic formations inhold and holdin (and/or withinhold and holdwithin), I think we can do without the Latinish “contain”.
English is so full of it! The word “full”, that is. “Full” is the 513th most common word in the English language. And considering there are over a million words, that’s not bad going.
English likes the word so much that it has been co-opted as a common suffix: –ful.
But did you know that English can use “full” as a kind of sham-prefix, the first element of a compound. Essentially, it produces verbs and adjectives with the same kind of meaning as the self-standing word “full” and the suffix “-ful”, that is, ‘full of, having, or characterised by X’.
Sadly, we haven’t used it productively for a long time. It’s hard to see why, though, given the allwhereness of “full” and “-ful”. Here are some examples from Old and Middle English.
OE fulbrecan ‘to violate’ (full + breach/break, that is, to fully breach/break)
OE fulslean ‘to kill outright’ (full + slay)
OE fulripod ‘mature’ (full + ripened)
ME ful-comen ‘attain (a state), realise (a truth)’ (full + come)
ME ful-lasting ‘durability’ (full + lasting)
ME ful-thriven ‘complete, perfect’ (full + thriven)
Not all of these formations make much sense in Modern English, but it’s easy to see the power of this kind-of prefix use of “full” and how it could greatly widen and deepen the English wordstock.
Funnily enough, I have ingested one too many tomes of poetry over the years, and have long since been using full-, totally unthinkingly, for years and years. Perhaps I have already been spreading the seed of this affix.
Here are some put-forward words. Add your own!
fullbreach: to violate fullripe: mature (note that “ripe” mostly fits well for “mature”, although there are cases where “mature” means almost-but-not-quite overripe, and in this sense especially, it seems “fullripe” is a useful word) full-lasting: lasting the needed length. This is different to longlasting which basically means “durable”. full-done: completed (successfully)
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Quick Comment: Addicting
August 28, 2022Every time I hear the Americanism “addicting”, I am at first momentarily baffled, and then physically sickened. Just say “addictive”!
But let’s set aside our nationalist preferences. We don’t say “sportive” but “sporting/sporty”, so why wouldn’t we say the plainer, albeit not totally Saxon, “addicting”?
© 2022 Bryan A. J. Parry
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