6 ms·
As a rule of thumb, English is choke-full of Anglo-Saxon/French redundancies that rarely come to light due to a register separation. Anglo-Saxon etymons tend to
by Vlaix 13y ago
As a rule of thumb, English is choke-full of Anglo-Saxon/French redundancies that rarely come to light due to a register separation. Anglo-Saxon etymons tend to the lower registers of language, French (along with Latin, although the line between a word that came from French or straight from Latin can be very blurred, and Greek) ones to the higher.
- gohrt 13y agochock ;-)
- josephlord 13y agoOn this thread that gets a upvote!
- MaysonL 13y agoShouldn't that be a nupvote? ;-]
- jessaustin 13y agoWhich is the eggcorn? "Chock" seems more idiomatic, but now that I think about it, I'm really not sure.
- bane 13y agoThis generalizes and is reinforced even more into words of Germanic origin being automatically considered lower register, while Latin and Greek words being assumed to be higher. e.g. valediction instead of farewell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germanic_and_Latinate_equivalents_in_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germanic_and_Latinate_...
- thaumasiotes 13y agoNot a great example; "farewell" is so archaic that it won't be understood as low register. It will be understood as purposefully fancy.