Words are interesting and amusing - especially English words that seem to have the randomness that is similar to contents of a communal vacuum cleaner. (Before anyone decides to take offence, please note that I am by no means one to come up with such an original thought - I actually read somewhere that other languages apparently do not adapt as easily as English, and hence they do not share the same popularity that English has, the cost of this of course is that English dictionary is filled with words from varied and diverse sources, similar to - to put it very unflatteringly - the contents of a communal vacuum cleaner.)
One of the side effects, I believe (but I might be wrong), of this absorbtion is that words like fiend and friend, are seperated by exactly 1 letter. Such a light bulb moment leads me to head to the dictionary (merriam-webster is easy to find online), and look up the origins of the word. In case you look up merriam-webster for fiend in this way, you will find that one of the origins of the word is from the Sanskrit word piyati he reviles, blames.
which of course for me, does exactly two things: a: emphasises the randomness of words in English as compared to Sanskrit; and b: reminds me of ZenPencils quote by Stephen Fry.
No comments:
Post a Comment