Court

The word court has many meanings, from that of a group of folk gathered around somebody to a yard hemmed by buildings. But the main one today—and the only one I wish to talk about here—is that of a body which tries and finds the law. There has been a few word put forward to overset court, but most of them fall short. But let’s have another go as I think I have found something both natural–sounding and already in speech.

Simultaneous

The adjective simultaneous—and the related adverb simultaneously—are ripe for a new English word. Not only are they overlong and over–Latin, but they mean something which is fairly basic and should have an easier word. It is easy to swap them with the phrase at the same time, but it would be better if we could have something shorter and ‘snappier’.

Size

Size which had been worrying me for some time. It is a rife word and yet I hadn’t found any word I liked to overset it. I had been saying greath for a time—that is great with –th—but it sounded clumsy. And for some unknown I had not seen the most obvious word for it…until today. I was reading a book with a quote from the 1700s where somebody was describing a thing and spoke of its bigness. The word seemed so natural and flowed well with the other words, and of course it was easy to know what it meant straight away. Even though you might think it would sound odd to speak of the bigness of small things, we already say height even of low things and length of short things. Size is a small gap filled with bigness.

–handed

Sometimes I can’t see a word—or even a bit of a word—without thinking what we can do with it. So many words are needed that it seems a shame to let anything that might be any good at all slip from our fingers. Speaking of fingers, the words I have lately been thinking about are those ending with –handed. We do so much with our hands, and so it wonders me how many words can be made with this ending?

Bedmate

I only first heard the word bedmate yesterday, and at once I was struck by its usefulness. It has some of the same meanings of bedfellow, such as ‘somebody with whom a bed is shared’. But it also can mean ‘sexual partner’, and works as a euphemism when you don’t want to say anything too blunt. We need all the different layers of speech, and so it is a good word to have.

Now how do you say euphemism in Roots English?

Automatic

The only automatic thing I truly trust is an automatic door, and even then I have had a few near misses with them seeking to behead me. I lean away from automatic things, and much rather like to see and do things for myself, so then I understand how they work. Even so, automatic things are so common nowadays, that I think we ought have a word for them.

Folkways and Lifeways

There is a tangle of words we say in English which cluster around the meaning of culture. That is, words said to mark out and describe not the bodily things that are, nor what is known or believed, but rather that ‘way of doing things’ that we all unspokenly understand and hold which we name as culture. Such words are norm, civilization, tradition, custom, moral, ceremony, and maybe many others. We have the word law, and maybe rule, which are well–known, but apart from those we soon get into lesser–known or seldom said words. I want to tease out the different things that these words are said to mean, and maybe come up with some words of our own.

Bookwords

Sometimes I like to call words that are overly complicated or obscure “bookwords”. The name itself should be enough to mark out where these words come from and where they are mainly said. There are many words which we see in print which we seldom if ever hear spoken. Indeed, it seems normal to us that this is so. But it strikes me that it shouldn’t be so, that in truth it is weird and wrong that there is a gap between spoken and written English, moreso when it makes a gap between speakers themselves.

Lost, 1st deal

The oven–hot wind wrapped around his body, drawing out such sheets of sweat onto his skin that he thought himself much the cooler for the breeze. Only when the sweat itself seared away was this belief belied. Every shift of his body, every swing of a limb, swam through the heat. The sun here was not a light but a fire, not a candle but a hearth. The heat throbbed in his head, filling up his eyes and ears so that nothing felt straight. Yet even were the sun to be snuffed out at once, the ground still baked underfoot. It sent up a withering heat rather unlike the dazing of the sun, weighting him down with numbness. Together he thought they might drive him mad: for at once he both longed to sit down and gather his mind, while also wanting to stand upright and shake the weight loose from his limbs. At best he met each half way and stooped low as he trudged along the tough dry ground, with his backpack slung high like a dead dog burden.

Overwhelm

I’m a strong believer in the ability of all English speakers to make new words. I am always on the look out when reading for new words, made on the go by speakers who feel at home and at ease with their tongue. This already happens all the time, but I feel that one of the boons of Roots English is that by putting the roots of the English tongue above those of French, Latin and Greek, it widens how many folk can make and understand new words without worry. FLaG roots can make us freeze, not knowing which or what is needed to make a new word, but English roots let us flow as wordcrafters, making new words as we will.