War of Words – ‘Frank’
with Marc DeSantis
etymology
War of Words – ‘Chariot’
With Marc DeSantis
War of Words – ‘Tank’
With Marc DeSantis
War of Words – ‘Quarantine’
With Marc DeSantis
War of Words – ‘Sabotage’
With Marc DeSantis
War of Words – ‘Constable’
With Marc DeSantis
War of Words – ‘A chip on his shoulder’
With Marc DeSantis
Novel words
Dictionary publishers like to end the year by announcing the new words that that they have added to the lexicon based on the frequency with which they have appeared in print during the preceding 12 months. Not all of these words are new, and this year’s crop consists mainly of familiar words that have undergone shifts in meaning.
War of Words – ‘Cohort’
With Marc DeSantis
Viking linguistic legacy
In September, Sherds attended a lecture given by Richard Dance, Professor of Early English in the Cambridge University Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, on the theme of ‘Vikings in your Vocabulary: Adventures in the History of English’, based on his Gersum Project (www.gersum.org) looking at the Scandinavian influence on our language.
The Shasu and Egypt
Sean Rigby explores textual evidence to identify ancient Egypt’s enigmatic neighbour.
War of Words – ‘Ballistic’
With Marc DeSantis
War of Words – ‘Parting Shot’
With Marc DeSantis
CA 400 Letters – June
Your thoughts on issues raised by CA.
Language, a heritage asset
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for Current Archaeology, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world. This is his latest 'Sherds' column.
On the origins of ‘woke’
Most of us would guess that this was a word of recent coinage, but it first occurred in the lyrics of a 1938 song by the blues singer Lead Belly
War of Words – ‘ARMAGEDDON’
'Armageddon’ came to English, via Greek, from Hebrew har megiddo, meaning ‘mountain of Megiddo.’