D’you mind if I share some things I read in the S pages of a massive Webster’s Second International? Thanks. You’re a peach.
Obsolete meanings of common words
Sorry is used as a noun in Scottish and some English dialects to mean “sorrow.” It was also once used as “to grieve.” And sorry grace was once a phrase meaning “bad luck” or “ill fortune.”
Sorrow once had a subtle use of causing actual damage, not just emotional stress.
Sore as an adjective once had a sense of criminal or wrong. As a noun, it once was used to mean disease, affliction, pain, or grief. As a verb, it used to mean “to wound.”
Sound was once used in the sense of understanding or relevance, as in, the speech had no sound for me.
Word combos
Also, on these pages are lists of combinations, like these archaic ones for sore: sore-beset, sore-dreaded, sore-taxed, sore-vexed, and sore-won.
These for sorrow are not marked archaic but have an unfamiliar sound to me: sorrow-blinded, sorrow-bound, sorrow-closed, sorrow-seasoned, sorrow-shot, and sorrow-streaming.
For soul, there’s a long list, including soul-benumbed, soul-blind, soul-boiling, soul-cloying, soul-fatting, soul-gnawing, and soul-thralling.
The Internet doesn’t have natural discoverability like this old dictionary. We could lose a lot of knowledge by limiting our systems to giving us only the answers to the questions we’ve asked, because if we ask what else we might want to know, the Internet just asks us what else we want to know.
Now that I’ve played the philologist for a minute, what else do we have?
More Words: Here are a couple videos on old words that should be brought back.
- 20 Awesome Historical Words We Need to Bring Back – History Hustle
- Medieval Words You Should Start Using Today – RobWords
Journalism: There’s a pedestrian bridge crossing I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport that connects Bloomington to Richfield. Tyler Vigen wanted to know why it was built. Some of the readers of this very blog may be asking the same question, so Vigen did the research and has given us a full report (with excessive in-text notes).
Authors: C.S. Lewis versus T.S. Eliot with sharpened opinions
Naturalism: Does unnatural behavior exist? Is it true that “whatever is possible is by definition also natural”?
Photo: The sign on the old hotel by the tracks, Gulpwater, Wyoming. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.