“Anglish”

“Yu can't say that belcose is beclysan, influence'd by French, but then say that close has nothing to do with clysan. That's a "non-sequitur".”

The way I interpret the OED’s etymology of “beclose” is that it is a continuation of “beclysan”, but the second element was replaced by “close”, which was borrowed from Old French. 

I have a background in linguistics. You say it's “all guesswork”, but isn’t. Historical linguistics is not just guesswork. You're making speculations that conform with what you want to be true - that's guesswork. But I'm looking at the theories that have been formed over the past 100-200 years based on observation and rigorous methodology. Sure, I could be wrong, but I'm much more likely to be right. If you think the entirety of historical linguistics is wrong... well you've got quite a job ahead of you.

Oh dear me! sighed Teddy, so now I must learn historical linguistics as well as Latin and Greek, just to show the other bears how to speak true English. Oh dear me, I'm quite stuffed as it is.

Perfect sh1te, no English speaker should be waylaid by snobbish scholars saying that their mother tongue only has worth if viewed through the learning of another... utter midden slops!

And it is untrue that pronunciation and uttering is unaffected by spelling... take 'forehead' for instance. Originally, it was pronounced 'forrid' yet now there is back-formation and many say 'fore-head'. 'Again' was mostly said as 'aggenn', but we see a trend towards ' agayn'... Back-formation in line with spelling is commonplace.

A thousand scholars spouting untruths doesn't make them right, and yes I am stating that I find it more likely that a befolking of 95% English speakers that had the word 'beclysan' are more likely to have influenced 'close' than a minority of flowery gallic vikings... sorry but that's strength by numbers. Vowels are soft and squishy and get warped and weft constantly. Plus the b@llocks suggestion about 200yrs of linguistic studies being unquestionable fact is what keeps progress slow and allows professional misunderstanding to become enshrined nonsense.

Language study is a form of science, and as with all science, as the adage goes ' If you aren't pissing people off, then you aren't doing it properly ' And I yeasay that through and through. We here are the questioners, the frainers, the askands, whatever... we don't like the biased populist drivel in the OED or mainstream English language mythology... and we defo have a right to ponder, rethink and provide our own educated guesses.

Yes, if you're going to discuss etymology, then yes, knowing some historical linguistics would certainly help.

Gallitrot, I'm not sure what you mean about "mother tongue only has worth if viewed through the learning of another" - I never said anything about that.

And yes, spelling can be affected by pronunciation. We have evidence to show that the pronunciation of words like "forehead" and "waistcoat" changed because of the spelling. But we have (I think) no evidence that this happened in the middle ages, when people spelled how they pronounced, and not the other way around. All the examples of Norman influenced spelling change I am aware of did not change the pronunciation.

Good grief, I never said that 200 years of lingustic studies was unquestionable fact. However, we have a prevailing theory, which explains a lot, is testable, and lets us make predictions which have been fulfilled (Saussure's coefficients sonantiques is a good example). Language study is a science, and like a science, if you have a problem with the prevailing theory, then do the work and come up with a better theory, one that explains everything the current theory explains and more.

@goofy: I thought Anglish has at root a wish to turn back the inflow of (snobby), mostly latinate words in today's English. My ask is what rede could we give to today's writers - in news/books/universities/business so as to make English more "sturdy" ?
I am thinking of a short rule of thumb which does not mean learning the word roots. For instance avoid words of more than one syllable which end in -ate, ation, ative; or words with forefasts like "trans-", "extra-". It would mean a word like "scarce" (which at first I thought might be ON) would not be targeted. But overall it would be a step in the right heading.
What rede would you give today's writers of English?

I fīnd þat þe ſtrȳgel on ſpæccanġeclæne þōht iſ an godþōht, hoƿefer, þær haſ to bē an līne, raðerþænoȝt, þæt muſt be draƿeð bēfor þīne tȳng ſcallt bēccome unfūl to bē rǣddan by ȝuƿer poēpel.

I was wondering if someone (or anyone) could cast some/any light on how today's usage of "some' / "any" came about. Yes, "any" "einig"; some summige. But how did the meanings and the use of "any" after negatives develop in OE?

"Historical linguistics is not just guesswork." ... Sure it is. It may be very good guesswork but until yu can come with a recording with that wayback masheen ... then it's guesswork (speculation) built upon assumptions that may or may not be true ... for byspel:

" But we have (I think) no evidence that this happened in the middle ages, when people spelled how they pronounced, and not the other way around. All the examples of Norman influenced spelling change I am aware of did not change the pronunciation."

That's a mighty bold assumption to say that no one gave into their teacher's pedantic rant on how to spell words and that everyone spell'd the words the way they thought they should be spell'd as to how each one said the word. Or never thought, "Hmmmm ... I'm writing to someone in the king's court and I don't want to seem like some country bumpkin so I'll spell it the way he spell'd it when he wrote me so that my writ won't be thrown out. " (That's still done today ... I'll giv yu that's it likely worse today since so many are stuck on "stupid spellings" like through, though, enough ... none of which where the 'ough' are said the same way.)

Heck, I'v seen the same word spell'd sunder ways in the same writ!

Look, I'm not trying to be froward ... linguistics giv us a good framework to work within. But that is all that it is ... a good framework. The same as learning a fremd tung in the classroom givs a good framework but yu can't truly learn all the qualities of the sounds til yu hit the street ... Sadly, we can't "hit the street" for OE or even ME ... so we work within the framework as best we can; however, never be afeard to step outside of it and look at again. Eke, it is only a deal of the puzzle. It's not the alpha and the omega.

I've come up with five questions that I think it would be great to hear answers on from anybody interested in Anglish. They seek to get to the root of what and why we do what we do, and hopefully spur some discussion on them. I think that everybody's view is a little different, but I wonder if there are main "strands" so to speak.

The questions are here:
http://rootsenglish.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/5-asks-for-anglishers/

Cloze -->> gapfill

Why Anglish and the like are doomed to failure:
1) The people don't want it: despite all efforts since the inkhorn era, there has been little go-forward. Some progress toward plain-speech (which is not quite the same thing).
2) Many Norman-French and some latinate borrowings have become deeply embedded and there are now no proper stand-ins.
3) there are nuances available in the french/latinate borrowings that are hard to make up, for example "suggestion" (open to discussion) and "proposal" (more take-it-leave-it) - hard to mimic with "forelay" "put forward" or "input".

In writing this I cannot easily come up with stand-ins for despite, effort, proper, nuances, mimic and so on. It is too hard unless one spends ages with a thesaurus and etymology. Interesting as an exercise but in the end doomed. All that we can ask is for folk to stick to short words wherever possible. Success is just beyond our grasp.

Jayles, I will answer your asks on my blog in good time.

But for 2, I can only say what I've always believed, that if we lessen the FLaG words in English, then it makes no odds whether there are some (or even many) left. Getting rid of all would be great, but fewer is the true goal. Though I often seek to write with none, I know that it cannot always be done. Even we can only get rid of 1 in 10, that is still something worth our hard work.

Jayles here is my answer to 1:

http://rootsenglish.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/there-has-never-been-a-better-time-for-roots-english/

There is still hope!

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 01, 2012 > aborning "while being born or produced"

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 02, 2012 > wend "to direct one's course : travel, proceed "

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 06, 2012 > gainsay "1 : to declare to be untrue or invalid 2 : contradict, oppose"

@jayles:

1) "The people don't want it" < Want what? Do you mean to say that all English-speaking folk thoughtfully wanted to wreck the English wordstock and/or tongue? Folks wanted fremd words to be put in stead of English ones? I don't think it was done by the folks with aforethought (BTW, this is a great word that can stand in for 'intentional', 'deliberate', 'premeditated', among others). The so-called "academics" are another thing.

2) "Many Norman-French and some latinate borrowings have become deeply embedded and there are now no proper stand-ins".

Kindly, name a few. These N.Fr and L words took over from English ones, so why couldn't we switch back to the unseated English words? I give you that there are some Latinates can be thought of as "true English"- kitchen, street, wine, cup, and other early borrowings before the year 450.

3) "there are nuances available in the french/latinate borrowings that are hard to make up, for example "suggestion" (open to discussion) and "proposal" (more take-it-leave-it) - hard to mimic with "forelay" "put forward" or "input"".

That is only owing to our weak English knowledge of how those shades of meaning were made with the wordstock--of which some words are no longer known or said today.

Take L. suggestion. In what way do you mean it? It could be said to mean "hint at," "a forewarning," "put forward," "bring up/forth," and so forth.

Proposal > a bid, a pitch (to propose (in business) > bid on, to pitch)

It might take a little more thought now, but working daily toward the goal of Englishing ones speech will allow one to hone and sharpen those skills. Soon, everyday English words would roll freely and readily off the tongue.

I must gainsay that "...and the like" is doomed; Anglish may be, but Englishing English again, I think, is not.

despite < notwithstanding, even though, even with, against

effort < deed, work (hangs on meaning)

proper (appropriate) < right, (be)fitting, true, meet (meetness) [< O.E. gemǣte akin to German gemäss (OHG māza), ON mǣtr]

nuances < shades, sheer

mimic < ape, take on, make like, liken oneself to

AMEN < O.E. Soðlic (< Today, soothly), Swā hit ys (so/thus it is {true})

I have to yeasay Ængelfolc's points,

He's right, speech and language are ever flowing and so there is nothing that has been done to the language that cannot be undone.

'I must gainsay that "...and the like" is doomed; Anglish may be, but Englishing English again, I think, is not.' Yes that is in truth what I meant.
re: suggest/propose - in a business meeting "can I make a suggestion?" much more tentative than "I propose that we.... ". (This can be a pitfall for unwary French speakers).
I haven't worked out a good answer for this in true English.
"despite all the efforts" -> all the struggles/strivings notwithstanding..
"proper" with the meaning of "up to the set standard" is unanswered so far.
amen -> so be it.
" "The people don't want it" - by this I meant that that the middling wight doesn't want to bother with Anglish - it is to bookish, there are more weighty things in life. Many wights would be interested in cleaning up the gobbledegook and making English "plain and simpler", though. (more straightforward and less snobbish)
Any ideas for "disappear" ??

I stumbled upon this list of twin-words:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dual_French_and_Anglo-Saxon_variations

Ængelfolc: "I give you that there are some Latinates can be thought of as "true English"- kitchen, street, wine, cup, and other early borrowings before the year 450."

Can I ask why the cutoff is at 450, and not any other year? Why are words borrowed after that not good English? But those borrowed before are?

Any Latin word which English willingly took in and not thrust upon it as an unneeded inkhorn term should be deemed fine, this will also include Norman French words such as 'war' or ' part' that were accepted into the language as they filled a niche one expects... probably some even after the Overthrowing which were just plain useful - though that is obviously harder to prove.

"Any Latin word which English willingly took in and not thrust upon it as an unneeded inkhorn term should be deemed fine, this will also include Norman French words such as 'war' or ' part' that were accepted into the language as they filled a niche one expects... probably some even after the Overthrowing which were just plain useful - though that is obviously harder to prove."

Yeah, that's almost my position too. I have a blanket policy of accepting pretty much anything borrowed before the mid 1100s or so, and anything not from French, Latin and Greek. I mean, we borrowed potato and kangaroo because they were new things to us, but administer and corpulent? Nuh-uh. I can understand why the cut off should be after the Norman invasion, as that's when the social structure of England changed and impacted the English tongue. But what happened at 450 which is so important?

WAR is good anyway, it is not Latin, Greek, or French. English already had the word, which was the same as what the gallicized Vikings brought over. WAR < OE wyrre/werre; the ON.Fr werre (Frankish *werra) < all from PGmc *werso.

The Germanic gave Sp. guerilla, Old French guerrer, ONFr werreier, ONFR. warant(ir)/warantie (< Frankish *warand), O.Fr garantir/garantie (Frankish *warand), among others.

OED says, "Romanic peoples turned to Germanic for a word to avoid L. bellum because its form tended to merge with bello- "beautiful.""

M-W has had some fetching WOTDs for the past few months ... skirl, wifty, welkin, wetware ... only three Anglo-Teutonic rooted words so far this month.

My wisse (rule) of thumb is that any word found in B-T or Clark's Concise is good to go. It'll be fetching to see what the Univ. of Toronto's project to foregather every known A-S word turns up!

Can I make a suggestion? ... Can I put out a thought?
Suggetion / proposal ... Foreset http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foreset (noun and verb), to suggest/propose ... put forth
Giv up "proper" in a sentence that is bothering you.
disappear (3 syllables) ... lost to sight (3 syllables), lose from sight, melt away, die out, dwindle, fordwine (for-dwine) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fordwine

Here's another fetching word that means extinguish, blot out, delete: adwesch (a-dwesch) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/adwesch

"what happened at 450 which is so important?"

This is thought to be about the time when English began to come together as a tongue. This "first Ænglisc" already had some fifty Latin borrowings from when these "Ængliscmenn" were still on the homeland.

These Latin words have truly become woven into Ænglisc owing to their meaning and high standing in the daily lives of the Ænglisc folk.

"Why are words borrowed after that not good English? But those borrowed before are?"

I never said, or hinted, that borrowed words after the year 450 were not good English. There were many Latin words that flooded into the tongue in the year 597, and those would be thought of as "good English", if one is Christian. Also, since Christianity became meshed wholly into the lives of early English folks, these words would take on an inborn meaning for them over time, too.

The Vikings began coming to England about the year 800, and by year 1100, English had already warped into "Anglo-Scandinavian", as put forth in "The Vikings in Britain" by Professor H.R. Loyn. He wrote:

"...in the thirteenth century that up to the time of William the Bastard the
language of England was one and the same as that in Norway and Denmark, and that it was only after his conquest that there was a change...By 1100 the very nature of the English language itself in the east and north had been profoundly modified to the point where it is not unreasonable to call it Anglo-Scandinavian; and it was from the language patterns of eastern England that the main lines of standard modern English were ultimately to develop." pp. 114-115, "The Vikings in Britain" (1977)

I'm okay with all of the Scandinavian borrowings, too. Old Norse and Old English are near enough that likely a Viking and an Anglo-Saxon could talk to each other and be well understood.

Not all loans and borrowings are bad for English, but the way I see it, most of them have been.

I think the best thing to look at settle on what is true English are the EVERYDAY WORDS. Most of these, I think, should be thought of as true English.

Unaddling >> "...in the thirteenth century [ an Icelandic writer wrote] that up to the time of William the Bastard the language of England was one and the same as that in Norway and Denmark"

WELKIN "the sky" < ME welken < OE wolc(e)n < PGmc *welk-, *wulknan, *wulkō, *wulkô "sky, clouds, heavens"; akin to German Wolken.

" Regn wolcen brincgeþ"

Here an englishening of a German loanword: zeigeisty http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zeitgeisty meaning "contemporary", "trendy", "modern".

"These Latin words have truly become woven into Ænglisc owing to their meaning and high standing in the daily lives of the Ænglisc folk."
So too have many Norman-French words like chair, apply .... so logically why does the same not apply?

"These N.Fr and L words took over from English ones, so why couldn't we switch back to the unseated English words?"
Because so many have disappeared, become lost, and are no longer in a modern wordbook. A shame I agree but nevertheless we must work with what we still have.

"I think the best thing to look at settle on what is true English are the EVERYDAY WORDS." Hmm but wouldn't 'transit lounge', or 'bus station' be an everyday word?

I am not agin the thrust of your thinking; when I said "people don't want Anglish", I was thinking that most lede are not worried about word-roots, they just want to be understood clearly and get on with their lives. So the task is to find some marketable spur to sell our way of thinking.

**So the task is to find some marketable spur to sell our way of thinking.**

Yeasaid, I've been saying this for years - convince the common Joe and you can pretty well aliven anything, just has to be trendy.

@jayles:

To my mind, the same is not brought into play. Let's look at the words you brought up...

CHAIR (abt.1250) M.E. cha(i)ere "a stool to sit on; a seat of office or authority" < O.Fr. chaiere < L. cathēdra "seat" < O.Gk kathedra "seat"

APPLY (abt. 1350) M.E. ap(p)lien < Anglo-French, Old French ap(p)lier < Latin applicāre < ap (ad- before 'p') "toward" + ply (from plicāre) "to fold" = In English, "to fold toward"

My main thought against these words is that they are both after 1066. CHAIR began to take over from stool (O.E. stōl), settle (M.E. setle < O.E. setl, akin to saddle; see G. Sessel), and seat (O.N. sæti "seat") in earnest about the 1400's. Anyway, I would say that 'chair' seems much more deeply rooted in British English than say American English. It seems to me that this is found more in government.

APPLY, too, is highly academic, no? Can English not live without this word? I think so. There are many ways to say "apply." I guess my thought is that those words that were borrowed from Latin so long ago likely didn't have a Germanic match. Ænglisc has/had words for all, or most, of the fremd borrowings from Latin & Norman-French. What are the true Ænglisc words for 'cheese', 'wine', and 'kitchen'? To me, CHAIR, APPLY, and other Norman-French/ Latin words do not hold the same worth.

"Because so many have disappeared, become lost, and are no longer in a modern wordbook."

Between the O.E., M.E. and wordbooks of today, among other things, we likely have enough writings to find the lost words of which you speak. I see no roadblock here.

"Hmm but wouldn't 'transit lounge', or 'bus station' be an everyday word?"

Yes, although bus station seems more 'everyday' to me. Bus Stop is even better.

French General (retired) Stanislas Baudry founded horse-drawn Omnibus bus lines. The name comes from his first such undertaking in Nantes in 1823 - one of his bus line's stops was in front of a hat-maker's shop owned by a fellow oddly named Omnés. The stop, called "Omnes Omnibus" was a pun on the Latin sounding name of that hatter Omnès and Omnibus; Omnibus means "for all" in Latin. The omnibus was brought to England from France in 1829.

There was no Germanic word for the brainchild called an omnibus.

"I was thinking that most lede are not worried about word-roots, they just want to be understood clearly and get on with their lives."

Sadly, you are right. Most folks have forgotten what it means to holdfast their folkways. As I have always said, "Sprache ist Traeger der Kultur." If the lede were more aware and had more pride, it would've been harder to muddle English with all of the fremd words. I give you Iceland and France as today's standard bearers.

O.E. prȳde and O.N. prȳthi are akin to one another from O.E. prūd, prūt and O.N. prūðr < maybe from "Vulgar Latin" through French? Now, set this against O.Fr. prud, prod "gallant" < L.L. prōde "useful" < L. prōdesse "to be of worth"

www.etymonline.com says, "The sense of "have a high opinion of oneself," not found in Old French, might reflect the Anglo-Saxons' opinion of the Norman knights who called themselves "proud."" This same website puts forth that the Norse may have gotten the word O.N. prūðr from the same seeming Vulgar Latin word as O.E. I am yet far from won over though. Any thoughts out there?

PROUD - pg. 374, The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology
By Walter W. Skeat (1993 edition) > http://books.google.com/books?id=aDhGlKL3h00C&pg=PA374&lpg=PA374&dq=proud+etymology&source=bl&ots=t4ARe42fOi&sig=cHcrOGgJEArMfakViRLZdzUB1no&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LoleUNvRIITzyAHn5IGYCw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=proud%20etymology&f=false

I pretty much go with he fact that if 'pride' was being used by a mother-tongue befolking of around 95% English speakers against 5% Norman French speakers, then the word is most likely attributable to English, whether a Gallic slant in meaning was overlaid or not.

For "transit lounge" ... lounge is good to go so we only need a word for "transit". Here, "faring" (as in a journey) would work ... faring lounge.

Station, as in "bus station" or "train station", meaning the big, open hall/building ... English too has the word "hof": http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hof ... No reason not to swap in. So you see, these words haven't gone away ... they're still there only waiting to be dusted.

As for the word bus itself ... if one truly wanted to bestead it, one could note "folkwain" or "streetwain" or "roadwain" so something like that, however, that's a lot for the word "bus" which, by itself, means nothing in Latin. Bus comes from a Latin word that is so chopp'd up (by English speakers I believe) that no Roman would know it. In Argentina, a bus is call'd a "collectivo" (a collector) they look at you funny if you ask about an "autobus". I think that the word "bus" is common among the Germanic tungs (aside from Icelandic).

@Ængelfolc: "APPLY, too, is highly academic, no?"
I think not - apply for a job and so on. I would say it was an everyday business word, like so many Norman-French borrowings.

"My main thought against these words is that they are both after 1066." Yes, true.
My point was that they are equally as well embedded in today's English as the borrowings from latin before 1066 - so why treat them differently?

I do agree the French lede stick up for their own language (and nice French films too).
But shouldn't they toss out all the Frankish words too?

Iceland is different: they were never invaded. (?????)

There is much that could be done to further a sturdier and less academic English - it's a shame Tolkien didn't just write in early middle english - but we need to have clear logic backing up our offerings.

"DNA studies are beginning to show that the English are mostly
Brythonic (Celtic) in origin; no surprise to anyone who reads about
Boudicca of the Iceni and other tribes which stood up against the
Roman invasion, including the Welsh themselves.
The concept of alien Saxons spread across the English map is proving
to be unfounded. The Saxons came, but they managed to impose their
culture on everyone else, not their bloodlines, which probably only
affected the people in places like East Anglia. Same with the Vikings
in Yorkshire and the Danes in the Thames Valley. The Normans (that were mixed themselves) didn't marry into the people, only into the ruling classes.
Given that, you can see that to talk of the English as an Anglo-Saxon
race is a nonsense. The bulk of English people are Celts or pre-Celtic. "

If this is true then we should be sticking up for Welsh not English.
And English is every bit as elitist and imposed as Norman-French.

Today's English is truly a carrier of English culture - it shows some of them are a snobby lot.

As a Brit then naturally our roots are Celtic, but the sheer weight of north Germanic inflow is obvious to see in the native population; so many men sporting gingery whiskers and mousy brown hair colour that can only indicate time-honoured, mass inter-marriage between dark haired celts and blond teutonics. The point is, whether one attempts to back up Welsh or not, by the conquest English in it's various dialects had completely countermanded Brythonic speech, something Latin did not do centuries earlier. And in my opinion that can only come from widespread Germanic speech throughout the British isles, and with it hoards of Germanic speakers.

My problem with Norman French language influence is not its dominance asserted by natural demographic distribution of d'oil folk, but its elitist fueled tinkering of the English language. Useful Norman French words, I have no objection to, the Hasting's Overthrowing obviously brought nootly words with it - however many of those had been introduced and exhausted by the 12th century. It's the arrogance subversion of English in things like the Peterborough Chronicles where some cock of a monk decided to scriven out hundreds of English words in favour of their own incompetent English - in effect a bit like me as an English speaker taking Descartes' works and with my piss-poor French erasing all the words I didn't know and popping in English ones where it suited my ignorance.That's not cool, and it is an unfitting wrong.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0719_050719_britishgene.html

"In The Tribes of Britain, archaeologist David Miles says around 80 percent of the genetic characteristics of most white Britons have been passed down from a few thousand Ice Age hunters........"

It's not unwonted to hear, "I put in for that job."

The word France comes from the word for Frankish. Sadly, the Franks, after beating the Romans, settled in and took in so many Latinates as to make Frankish die out. See tho, that many of the Frankish words for war (such as war) liv'd thru. These cognates were eathly taken into English. The French should be looking to ed-quicken those Frankish words as well!

The Norman-French takeover itself likely wouldn't hav had a great change for English but for that it set up the French-Latin-is-good; English-is-crude mindset. The few early ME writings in English that we hav truly didn't hav that many Latinates and many of those were from the church (and, in the end Greek) but then most folks wrote in Latin and French and would sully their French with a lot of English words.

Sadly, to make things worse than they seem, there are Latinates that are wrongly given as Middle English from French but truthful are Old English from Latin. Passion is found in OE c805 ... nearly 300 hundred years before the Norman-French takeover, yet most etyms are "ME from French." ... Tho the Middle English Dictionary credits OE and B-T credits Latin.

Just to nutshell my points:
1) There must be some overwhelming selling point, some compelling reason for delatinizing English that will spur lede to take it on. What exactly is that?

Appealing to the Saxon in us to stand up is one-sided, and one-eyed - most of us a mix of Celt, Saxon, and Norman. We would become split-minded.

It must be rooted in today's world - not many lede care about what happened a thousand years ago. And in today's world latinate words do get you your next job, your degree, your promotion. We may not like this, but it is the biggest hurdle.

2) We cannot expect Joe Bloggs on the street to bone up on exactly when each word came into English. That is a no-starter.

3) What is the point of getting rid of latinate words if it just leaves us with a hedged-around word-stock?

"Chair" is an everyday word where I come from. "Settle" is a long bench-like piece of furniture, and "stool" is a chair with no back or arms. Taking away "chair", "couch" and maybe "sofa" and "cathedral" just lessens our choices and lessens the richness of the language. Likewise, we may use "put in" instead of "apply" for a job, but we are left with "applicant" and "job application form" which are hard to re-stead. And now "apps" is an everyday word - how many apps on your iPhone?

I meant to say that folks wouldN'T sully their Latin with English words.

applicant - seeker
application - seeking ... job seeking

I don't mind the short words like "chair" so much but I will shun them when I can. It's not so much of "un-Latinizing" English as to not shun the Anglo-Germanic-Teutonic (AGT) rooted words. Often, not always, but often speaking the AGT words hav fewer syllables and can be said quicker and are more eathly understood. Writing ... no so much as the not only the consonant clusters but also the screwy spelling of English sometimes takes as many if not more stafs (letters). Thus noting the AGT words is often more streamline(d):

Job Seeking - three syllables; 10 stafs (inholding the space)
Job Application - five syllables; 15 stafs (inholding the space)

English has a way of streamlining Latinates, fb ... app (from application) is now it's own word, bus (from omnibus). I daresay that in a few years, if not alreddy, most folks won't know that app is short for application anymore than they know that bus is short for omnibus.

When a Latinate streamlines the tung or fills a gap, it's not a big deal. But when it only makes things longer, more ravell'd, and is noted more to show off than to share knowledge ... then it's time to toss it and find a short, sharper AGT.

The plight is that so many of the AGT word that are still there hav gather'd dust and aren't as well known. They can only become well-known by noting them. Keep in mind that a lot of folks don't truly know what the overblown Latinate means ... they only nod their heads and keep going. Between the screwy spelling and the over-noting of Latinates, it's little wonder that there is such a high illiteracy (unreadingness?) among nativ English speakers.

So there you are ... It could streamline the tung and raising the readingness among nativ English speakers.

Personally, I think that adding Anglo-Saxon words would be great only if it is not at the expense of already enmeshed vocabulary. Most of word selection is preferential. I think having an alternative word would be nice.

Where I live the state unemployment benefit is called "jobseeker allowance" - and the term "jobseeker" is widely benoted instead of "unemployed" - such is the politically correct reality of life here.
I wonder if "werben/warb/geworben" made it into English is some form?????

G. werben "to advertise, to woo, to recruit" (many meanings) = O.E. hweorfan/ hwearf/ ġehworden "to turn, to travel, to roam, to wander"

1. "Hwiðer hweorfað wé" (whither shall we turn)
2. "Ðú hweorfest of hénþum in gehyld godes" (thou shalt pass from humiliations into the favour of God)

Today's G. werben is akin to Today's E. wharf, but sadly, I do not think that the work-word (verb) made it out of O.E. I will have to look through some of my books.

"jobseeker allowance" >> "Jobless/Workless Pay". Job-Seeker hints at someone that is truly looking for work. Odd that this word would be noted to mean "someone out of work, without a job/work, down & out, jobless, workless, on the dole." It doesn't seem to fit, does it?

Instead of "vagabond" > Enlish has landloper, loafer (*landloafer; see G. Landläufer)

there is no dole here ..... one must be "actively seeking work" (and prove it).

@jayles:

Your writing about "British" DNA is old, and has been undone with new findings. Anyway, DNA does not mean anything about folkways. But, let's look about, since you brought up the addled World of DNA.... Which of these "smart folks" are we to believe?

1. University College London academics studied a segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and north German men. They found that half of British men also have the segment.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2005829/Half-Britons-German-blood-geneticists-reveal.html

2. In 2002, Dr Mark Thomas, of the Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL, found that The English and Frisians studied had almost identical genetic make-up but the English and Welsh were very different.

3. Bryan Sykes says that only 10 per cent of men “now living in the south of England are the patrilineal descendants of Saxons or Danes… that figure rising to 15 per cent north of the Danelaw and 20 per cent in East Anglia”

4. Stephen Oppenheimer has put forth that 68 per cent of English DNA was on the island before the first farmers in the 4th millennium BC, and that most of the British forefathers arrived from Iberia. He also seems to think English was already spoken in England before the year 450.

5. "Britain's DNA" says 32 per cent of British men are descended from the original Britons, 12 per cent from ancient Germanic lines, 11 per cent are hunter gatherers and 7 per cent are ancient Irish.

6. This Summer (2012), Professor Peter Donnelly, a professor of statistical science at Oxford University and director of the Wellcome Trust centre for human genetics, said from south and north Wales genetically have "fairly large similarities with the ancestry of people from Ireland on the one hand and France on the other. Further, he also said that "modern people from central and southern England had many genetic similarities to modern people in Denmark and Germany". He said further that the Welsh could be the oldest Britons in Britain.

7. In 2003, Cristian Capelli did a study called 'A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles.' He and his fellow scientists found that Orkney and Shetland have significant Norwegian input and little to no German/Danish input, that the English and Scottish sites all have German/Danish influence, and that the Western Isles and Isle of Man have German/Danish influence, presumably due to English immigration.

And, there is much more than this out there! Who is right? It was found in a study called "The Genetic Legacy of the Vikings in Northwest England" that the following places in Britain had huge Scandinavian background: Isle of Man (39%), Orkey (40%), Shetlands (42.5%), Wirral (47%), West Lancashire (51%).

It is odd to mark that Archaeologists after the Second World War rejected the traditionally held view that an Anglo-Saxon invasion pushed the indigenous Celtic Britons to the fringes of Britain. Any guesses why? ;-)

Here is a thought stirring link that indeed will get the one thinking: http://www.englandandenglishhistory.com/origins-of-ethnic-english

And another one here: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/06/britons-english-germans-and-collective-action/

From the writ you linked..."The most visible British genetic marker is red hair..." Now, how did Tacitus talk about the way the Germans looked? "All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames..."

Do we truly know that those folks that spoke a "Celtic tongue" are not genetic kin to the folks that spoke a Germanic/Teutonic tongue? I mean, the genetic marker R1b is both found in Celtic tongued folks, and in Germanic (Anglo-Saxon/Frisian) folks.

Again, genes have nothing to do with folkways.Aren't we all from East Africa anyway? ;-)

I am of the same mind - "English" lede are of mixed roots, varying in different parts of the country. My point was that we should not impose an exclusively Saxon/Norse/Dane tongue on them all when their heritage is so mixed, any more than we should impose Norman-French or Latin.
Put another way, if say 5% of the lede are of Norman descent, then would it not be fair to allow, well, at least 5% of the wordstock from Norman, and hardly "fair" to shut out any word on the grounds that it is fremd. Nothing wrong in English being a mixed tongue at all.
We just need some other logical bedrock to benote as a deeming mark.
Perhaps leave words like "chair" alone - if it ain't broke don't fix it.
But clearly there is little need for words like "in retrospect" where "in hindsight" is at hand. So the deeming mark could be nearer "don't use big words where little ones would do".

Jobseeker allowance is a bettering over "unemployment insurance" ... Hmm, I don't think "wage" would be a good bestead for "allowance" here ... maybe "mete" from OE mete (meaning meal ... or meat) or as a noun from the verb mete (from OE metan - to measure out). Or "meten" as a noun from the -en afterfast (like "a burden" from to bear). It would be a good play on words with like-sounding "meat"! lol ... the "jobseeker mete(n)"

With fewer folks studying Latin ... I think that, outside of academia or burocratese, word-making is falling back to the AGT roots. Haplessly, still too many words are struck by those academics or burocrats.

My way for abiding Latinates is:
1. Was it in the tung pre-1066? ... If I find it in B-T, Clark's Concise A-S, or the Univ. of Toronto's wordstock, then it is good to go. Thus we find many words to inhold words like passion and press.
2. Is it found in widespread noting other Germanic tungs? ... Bus and family are good byspels of this.
3. Is it short, fremful (useful), and not eathly besteaded by an AGT? ... prey

Greek rooted words don't bother me as much. Many of them are church words (the New Testament was first written in Greek) that were Latinized a bit. The Greeks didn't take over Britain nor were in widespread fighting with the Germanic folk as were the Romans. Greek as many of the consonant clusters of English ... like "th". Sometimes I think Greek is nearer to English than Latin. That doesn't mean that words like gynotikolobomassophile (woman-earlobe-nibble-lover) don't trip up the tung, but words like problem, throne, asf are good to go for me.

Americans use "expiration date" for the British sell-by date - the date by which supermarket food must be sold. But sell-by date is increasingly used in the US in a figurative sense. Eg "That idea is well past its sell-by date." ... Sell-by is better than "expiration"! Even tho "use" is a Latinate, I often hear (and say) use-by date for medicines.

investment -> in-goings, in-cladding (a calque)

@jayles ... If you're talking about financial investments, then let's start with gelt (money).

gelt +hood, ship, or ness for finances (noun)
My gelthood isn't in good shape right now.

To invest money ... ingelt? Thus a financial investment would be ingelthood or ingelting.

One wontedly buys into an investment ... maybe ... inbuy? Which might be more bending. Fb ... I can't ingelt for that I'm broke, but I can inbuy time. (put in time). Or I can't inbuy gelt, but I can inbuy time. Gewiss, here one can say "put in" ... I can't put in gelt, but I can put in time.

If one is investing in a siege, then the word is beset.

Just a few thoughts to chew on.

"Americans use "expiration date" for the British sell-by date"

I saw "sell-by-date" in U.S. supermarkets all the time.

"My point was that we should not impose an exclusively Saxon/Norse/Dane tongue on them all when their heritage is so mixed, any more than we should impose Norman-French or Latin."

Well, I do not have an abiding thought about that yet. Most of the Latin/French/Greek words did not come into English without heavy burden. We know this. The same cannot be altogether said about English.

If we listen to Oppenheimer, and others, an English-like, Germanic tongue may have already been spoken before Hengist and Horsa came over in about the year 449. The overstepping Germanic folk coming from over seas may have frankly strengthened and bolstered the tongue already there. No one can truly say.

As I have always said, Norman-French before 1066 is mostly okay with me (they were gallicized Vikings that could at least say the Germanic -W-, and mixed Norse words, uttering, and Germanic stæfcræft/ stæfwrītere into their French after all); Latin as it was begotten from trade; Most Greek words are okay, too. As long as the fremd word isn't an inkhorn word, abounding or overmuch, and the fremd word hadn't bereaved the English word from the tongue by some political/government falderal, I'm good with it.

"If this is true then we should be sticking up for Welsh not English."

No, we should look to the bringing back of Cymraeg (Welsh tongue) as a way forward. We should learn how this tongue, along with Hebrew, Belarusian, Cornish, Manx, and Wampanoag (an Indian tongue of the U.S.), among others, is making a comeback.

"My point was that we should not impose an exclusively Saxon/Norse/Dane tongue on them all when their heritage is so mixed, any more than we should impose Norman-French or Latin."

Hmm, this is very pleasant and utopian in its conclusion, but the reason we have different individual languages is usually due to a predominance of one type of people communicating in an identical tongue, usually named after their geographic location.

The law of democratics tends to dictate that majority rule, so as well over 75% of people in Great Britain are of an Anglo-Germanic heritage, would it not be safe to assume, indeed assert, that English as it stands has a right to the same percentage of native words in its vocabulary? It is preposterous that the dynamics of English's wordhoard are dictated by (educational snobbery in relation to) a fractional amount of the peoples who wended here 2000 and 900yrs ago respectively. The Netherlands was invaded more often than we on this island have ever been, yet they sensibly maintained a truer, grassroots approach to the main stead of their spoken Germanic tongue.

Oh and I agree with Aengelfolc, can't dismiss the fact that the Welsh speaking peoples where the first on the island. So provisions, and location specific favouritism, should be encouraged so as to aid, maintain and promote Welsh in those areas where it is spoken i.e Wales.

"I saw "sell-by-date" in U.S. supermarkets all the time." ... True! ... Right before I had put that up I had redd a writ on the BBC website that claim that "sell-by date" was a Britishism that was now being seen in the States. However, after I wrote the abuv, I did my own kenseek (research) and ... noting the same way and kenbits (data) that the BBC noted ... that "sell-by date" show'd up in AmEn abut 10 years before it did in BrEn. I check'd the other words that the BBC said were Britisihisms and the same ... the were in AmEn before. Bad kenseek on the part of the BBC.

Nonetheless, "sell-by" is much better and unbecloudier than "expiration".

"New" old words:
forward/foreward ... meaning a contract or agreement (ward here in the witt of guard)
samentale ... agreement (of the same tale)

"75% of British and Irish ancestors arrive[d] between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago" (that is, long before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, and even before that of the Celts)
Based on a re-estimation of the number of settlers, there is a view that it is highly unlikely that the existing British Celtic-speaking population was substantially displaced by the Anglo-Saxons, and the latter were merely a ruling elite who imposed their culture on the local populations.[25][26]
from: wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people
Even the Daily Mail said that only 50% have SOME German blood.

I am not won over to the onlook that most of the population now have more than 50% German blood.

Another good word: Bogglish - to be uncertain, doubtful, wavering, or a wee bit skittish about something.

@jayles: "As a Brit then naturally our roots are Celtic..."

Should I take 'Brit' here to mean someone Welsh or Cornish...not English?

"My problem with Norman French language influence is not its dominance asserted by natural demographic distribution of d'oil folk, but its elitist fueled tinkering of the English language." Yes! Hear,hear!

"But shouldn't they toss out all the Frankish words too?" Yes, but the French don't know, don't acknowledge,and/or shroud the true roots of these words. Some wordlorists have guessed that 10% of today's French wordstock is know to have Germanic roots. I have found that many French wordbooks do what English wordbooks do--they stop short of the first roots of many words, markedly Germanic words. If the French wordbook writer finds that the French word is from Vulgar/Low Latin, they seek no more beyond that. A good byspell: We did not find out that FARM or FOREST was a Germanic word until the latter-day.

"Passion is found in OE c805 ... nearly 300 hundred years before the Norman-French takeover, yet most etyms are "ME from French." ... "

I wonder why the Anglo-Saxons allowed for the word 'passion' in 805 or thereabouts? We still have 'thro(w)e [O.E. þrōwian or, maybe, O.E. þrea],' in English today. English also still has "thole" [O.E. þolian "to bear, suffer, undergo"]

"Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so God’s angel to Mary quoth."--1922, James Joyce, Ulysses

"I am not won over to the onlook that most of the population now have more than 50% German blood."

Likely in East Anglia...

Highly thought stirring!

In his writings, Dr. Peter Forster has put forth that English may not be an off-shoot of the West Germanic branch, but might be a 4th North Sea Germanic branch unto itself. Dr. Forster estimates that Germanic split into its four branches some 2,000 to 6,000 years ago. If he's right, the ‘Celtic’ tongue (thought to be spoken in England before the Anglo-Saxons came) may, in truth, be a branch of the Germanic language tree after all.

@Ængelfolc ... Passion, when first brought into English, was mostly noted in the religious witt. It is in a land charter turning some land over to the church:

ðaet Eghwilc messepriost gesinge fore Osuulfes sawle twa messan, twa fore Beornðryðe sawle; and aeghwilc diacon arede twa ***passione*** fore his sawle, twa for hire; — that Every mass-priest recites for Oswulf's soul two masses, two for Beornthryth's soul; and every deacon reads two passions for his soul, two for hers. - Oswulf's Charters, c805

None the less, the ord (point) is that "passion" did not come to English in Middle English thru French ... It came into OE thru Latin. Therefore, it goes on the fore-1066 list.

"Likely in East Anglia..." .. and the rest of England???

http://mr-verb.blogspot.co.nz/2007/04/english-as-fourth-branch-of-germanic.html

I am still not won-over.

Speaking of French words that are wontedly said to be from French ... Here is a sunder one for mince. Most etyms say that it only comes from the French and that the French word comes from vulgar Latin:

From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-Germanic *minnisōnan (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish*minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *(e)mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon minsōn (“to make less, make smaller”), Gothic

to approach > to nigh (a doing-word)
benefit > boon
satisfy > fulfil
revenge, persecution, destruction > wrack
request, reserve > bespeak
a difficult position > strait(s)
provocation, harassment > trolling
govern, protect, discuss > rede (as a doing-word)
depart, disappear, vanish > wend

patient > tholemod
encourage > bield
peace > frith
condemn > fordeem
innocent, pitiable,fortunate > seely >
result > yield
accuse, challenge > becall

Why not "deal" for contract?
if bespeaking the document itself then deal-writ.

@Jayles ... now you're getting into the geist of things!

The word for revenge/avenge/damage/destroy is wreak: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wreak

Strait is said to come from French < Latin strictus. OTOH straight is from OE.

Harass has a Germanic root: early 17th century: from French harasser, from harer 'set a dog on', from Germanic hare, a cry urging a dog to attack. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/harass There is also always "bother" (Anglo-Irish).

rede (as a verb) means to giv advice. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/rede

Bield is fetching but one can say enbolden (or inbolden is an old spelling if yu don't like the en-) as well as hearten, enhearten/inhearten, or even inheart for encourage. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inheart

Deal is good ... and often noted. "He signed a deal with ... "

Earlier I was working on a story and needed a word for "consensus" ... I think samentale (of the same tale) might work here. So I wrote, "the samentale was ... " meaning the "the consensus was ... ".

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rede
- gives other meanings too
In my worklife 'consensus' was sometimes benoted to shroud what really happened;- blood in the boardroom , the last man standing achieved a 'consensus'.
How about 'like-minded ground' or' 'widespread feeling'....

violence > bewielding ??? as in "ahimsa" -> non-violence

Belgium's co-founder, Charles Rogier (a Francophone), wrote in 1832 to Jean-Joseph Raikem, the minister of justice:

Les premiers principes d'une bonne administration sont basés sur l'emploi exclusif d'une langue, et il est évident que la seule langue des Belges doit être le français. Pour arriver à ce résultat, il est nécessaire que toutes les fonctions civiles et militaires soient confiées à des Wallons et à des Luxembourgeois; de cette manière, les Flamands, privés temporairement des avantages attachés à ces emplois, seront contraints d'apprendre le français, et l'on détruira ainsi peu à peu l'élément germanique en Belgique.

In English > "The first principles of a good administration are based upon the exclusive use of one language, and it is evident that the only language of the Belgians should be French. In order to achieve this result, it is necessary that all civil and military functions are entrusted to Walloons and Luxemburgers; this way, the Flemish, temporarily deprived of the advantages of these offices, will be constrained to learn French, and we will hence destroy bit by bit the Germanic element in Belgium."

Hmmm? Does anyone else think that thoughts like these were only found in the 1800's? Maybe we can apply this seemingly Francophonic mindset to Ænglisc?

consensus > shared understanding, like-mindedness, fellowship of the mind, kinship of thought, kindred mind/thought, oneness, one-mindedness/ one-mind, sameness, wholeness, togetherness... of mind.

Anglo-Fr violent < L. vīs "strength, might" + L. -ulent "full of..."(< L. -ulentus); see FECULENT for a good laugh.

Sskt. ahiṃsā = "no harm" < a- "no, not, un-" + himsa "harm" (< Sskt. hims "to hit, strike")

See G. Gewalt "violence" < Ge- "to do something over and over again without end" (< PGmc. *ga- "wholeness") + walt, wald (see O.E. weald > E. wield) "strength, might, to rule"

O.E. ġe- = a-/i- in today's English >> a- + wield = awield < same as G. Gewalt.

There are many, many English words of today and yesteryear that can be said instead of L. violence.

True to form, the English stand-ins for 'violence' are mostly more specific:
beating, hitting,striking,harming, threatening, anger.....
I was just wondering how best to put "domestic violence" ....
"wife/child-beating/threatening" was the best I could come up with.
Or maybe something with '(a)wielding'??

Never ceases to amaze me how close French is to English, how easy to read sans wordbook.

Had the Lousiana purchase fallen thru, les Americains would be speaking French, and so would we all.

(Or had Arpad got to America.... or Columbus landed further north.....)

@jayles: "Never ceases to amaze me how close French is to English...."

What do you mean here? English and French to me are not alike at all. The only thing that is alike are some of the borrowed words.

Just, aside from the little grammar words, the meaningful word-stock is French - this is quite normal in business and half-scholarly writing. For a born and bred English wight, after the ground-framework, French is hardly a fremd tongue.
On starting university, a true English wight may have a word-stock of about 15000+ words, hingeing on what is meant by "word". (see Nation).
Of this word-stock over 4000 would be "French", and about the same again from Latin.

@Aengelfolc

Re. Rogier - yes, I've thought this concerning English for a long time. Rogier's plea just happens to have survived, and terrifyingly embodies the way many a Francophone bureaucrat likely thinks about their own language in Belgium to this day...However, economics and prosperity of the Flemings is countering this idea of Frenchly superiority, not to mention the helpful bolstering effect of English to the similar Flemish tongue.

@jayles: "Never ceases to amaze me how close French is to English...."

Haha, well this is obviously utter bollocks... you've likely been hitting the old wine flask before hitting the tweennet.

How does 'sans' sound anything like without? Sounds like lots of the stuff you find at the beach.

Hey Meedgetter,

This again is a funfilled lofty-wafty idea, had French really been spoken by superior numbers of French settlers then no matter how hard the Anglophone authorities attempted to impose English they'd have failed. I just don't believe that one treaty or deal or mandate would have worked in instilling French as the forefront language of the States without some kind of widespread genocide of all the Anglophones, plus Dutch and Germans to boot. Teutons who obviously found the transition to English easier with time than an unrelated Romance language. You'd have ended up with a Quebec state like situation at best, surrounded on all sides by Germanic speakers.

I think "sans" is in the English dictionary - used by Shakespear - sans teeth ....

"SANS" is in the English wordbook, but it is not an English word. It was borrowed Funny enough, the root of 'sans' (L. sine) does share PIE root as E. sunder.

"My loue to thee is ſound, ſans cracke or flaw." -- about 1590; William Shaespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, act v, scene 2

" the meaningful word-stock is French - this is quite normal in business and half-scholarly writing. For a born and bred English wight, after the ground-framework, French is hardly a fremd tongue."

The 'meaningful' word-stock? Like what? Business folks don't speak like that unless the were taught Globalish.

"Salut, comment allez-vous ?" is nothing like "How are you?" -- One cannot see enough kinship to guess the meaning. Even when writing with an Englished French word, it is not readily manifest > "J'avais la chirurgie" = "I had surgery"

French is most fremd when matched against English.

"Of this word-stock over 4000 would be "French", and about the same again from Latin."

With lots of frenchified Germanic rooted words akin to English. Truly, they are hardly all "French".

The point about French is that one gets past the basics the word-stock is often the similar - for at least 8000 words. More if you are Spanish, very little if you are Germanic.
For an English speaker, German starts off better, but the business and academic word-stock is harder to recall. "contract" in German -> er, ..Betrag. no...Beitrag...ah Vertrag. French so much easier at this level.
Again, romance and germanic tongues it is often possible to guess at meanings: that just doesn't seem to work once one moves east.
It is important to remember that out-and-out Anglishers would have nearly half of a school-leaver's word-stock ripped out and replaced. I don't think that will go down truly well.

Aengelfolc, it's a froth to behold your posts and input here. I nearly always yeasay your ingivings on this thread, and think you're likely the only fellow here with a kindred samethinkness as myself.

**Anglishers would have nearly half of a school-leaver's word-stock ripped out and replaced. I don't think that will go down truly well.**

No, not really, as no one's putting forward that the wordstock be ripped out. Just that needless foreign words be slowly and steadily insteaded by more English based ones. It would be a slow forthgoing to begin with but could increase as/ when the trend for more native words took hold or became newfangled.

" it's a froth to behold ..."
I only found froth to mean bubbles in the dictionary.
There are however "frover" and "frother" as doing-words, which might bring more joy.

"Again, romance and germanic tongues it is often possible to guess at meanings: that just doesn't seem to work once one moves east"

I don't understand what you mean here.

English words folks don't likely know....

frore: adj. frozen; frosty; Middle English froren

@jayles:

It would be wrong to say that the Norman-French bearing on the English was a bit of "froth." Right?