old english sayings:
"After sailors had crossed the Atlantic to the West Indies, they would take the native women on board the ship and have their way with them in between the cannons. Some of the women the sailors left behind would have boys, who were called sons between the guns. "
There are some other myths behind "son of a gun" as well. Watch mythbusters on the discovery channel!
just to let you know, I use www.m-w.com constantly. It's great because i can do homework on the computer and not have to worry about hefting around my huge dictionary!
" Website Review "
Ok. I'm currently poking around http://eleaston.com/etymology.html#info
This looks like it will be pretty helpful in the future. There are sections for Background info, History of English, Neologisms, etc. There are helpful links that connect you to other lists... but I guess what I was looking for was more of a search engine for my assigned words. This page provides a link to one of those sites: http://www.etymonline.com/
If you click on the "home" tab, there are other options as well.... the grammar link caught my eye. These links lead to more links that link to files of essays or articles.
N Word Investigation N
My first assigned word is "nice."
1. The etymology, as taken from the online etymology dictionary, is as follows:
it originated as an Old French term in the year 1290 and was taken from Latin. It entered the English language in the 1500s with a similar definition to the one it has now.
2. Lexical
Other words related to nice:
nicety, nicer, nicest, nicely, niceness. This list shows that the word, "nice," certainly lends itself to the creation of other words.
3. Semantics.
The word began as "foolish, stupid, senseless," in 1290, and evolved to "vague and mild agreeableness" by 1926. It's derived from Old French: nice "silly, foolish," from Latin. nescius "ignorant." lit. "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (see un-) + stem of scire "to know." "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] -- from "timid" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (c.1380); to "dainty, delicate" (c.1405); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830). In 16c.-17c. it is often difficult to determine exactly what is meant when a writer uses this word. By 1926, it was pronounced "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness."
4. resources:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=nice&searchmode=none
www.m-w.com
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