This evening I was at my parents’ house, watching a little TV after Sunday dinner. I don’t really watch much TV anymore, at least not in the conventional broadcast sense, apart from Sunday afternoons at home. Gaelic football matches are the usual background noise to Sunday-afternoon dinner, but we had it a bit later today, so I found myself watching an interesting nature programme.
Hello! I haven’t written much lately, mainly because I’ve been pretty busy.
With work mainly, though I also think it’s been nice to take a little break from writing, and refresh my mind a little. Not that I’ve been giving it too much of a break, mind you.
Sometimes I’ve thought this must just be for people to make story/storey puns. I mean, floor works just fine, doesn’t it? We all understand what it means in context, and every floor has a floor, so there’s a logic to it. Why even bother with storey?
I’ve often wondered about this expression: to send someone to Coventry. It’s a little old-fashioned, so you may not have heard of it. It means to deliberately ostracise someone, by ignoring them, refusing to talk to them. The obvious question about this phrase is: why Coventry?
I was thinking about this word, and the related word grave, this morning. Like contract, it’s a curiously multi-purpose word.
If you start a new job, or agree to buy something, you might have to sign a contract.
The word contract was originally usually used to refer to marriage, and comes from the Latin com (with, together) and trahere (to draw). Which makes sense really: if you give marry someone, you’re agreeing to draw closer together, and if you sign a contract with a company, you’re agreeing to draw together with them.
Isn’t if funny though, when we use contract as a verb?
Reading about Anglish yesterday, I realised that one of the most useful methods for proponents of this form of English is creating calques.
What’s a calque, I hear you ask?
English-Language Thoughts 