Freedom vs. Liberty by Joseph R. Stromberg English is a language blessed, or cursed, with an overflowing wordhoard. 30% or so of our vocabulary comes to use from Old English (with some reinforcement from Old Norse). To this Germanic base, the Norman Conquest added tens of thousands of Norman French words – very roughly 60% of the whole vocabulary. There was a constant trickle of new borrowings from Scandinavian languages, Low German, and Dutch down the centuries. The Renaissance encouraged borrowing of learned terms from Latin and Greek. These last make up a good part of the last ten or so percent of our usable words. To tangle things even more, English explorations and conquests brought in words from India, the Americas, and Australia. If we wish to speak of the ruler, we have a choice of "regal" (Latin), "royal" (French
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:23:42 +0000
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