100 words that define the First World War. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) World War I timeline shows some of the ways in which the events of the First World War left their mark on the English language. For example, the wet and muddy conditions of the first winter of trench warfare were evoked in the term Flanders mud (November 1914), while trench boots and trench coats (both December 1914) were invented to cope with these conditions. By early 1915 the physical and psychological effects of trench warfare were being felt: both trench foot and shell shock are first recorded in January 1915. One linguistically important event was the involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli (1915), which led to the coinage or spread of terms such as Anzac (April 1915), Aussie (1915 as a noun), and the Anzacs’ affectionate term for a British soldier, choom (June 1916).
The timeline also highlights developments in military technology, such as the introduction of the tank in 1916. How the internet is killing off silent letters. Professor David Crystal says people drop letters when typing them into search engines He says the internet will influence changes in spelling in the future Academic labels the 'h' in rhubarb as 'illogical' By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 08:29 GMT, 2 June 2013 | Updated: 06:40 GMT, 3 June 2013 David Crystal, professor of linguistics of Bangor University, explained how people are dropping letters when typing words into search engines Common misspellings of English words could be acceptable within a few years because they are used online, a linguist has said.
‘Rhubarb’ could change to ‘rubarb’, ‘receipt’ to ‘receit’ and ‘necessary’ to ‘neccesary’. Simpler online forms of ‘irritating’ complex words are starting to affect mainstream usage, linguistics professor David Crystal told the Hay Literary Festival. He started monitoring the word ‘rhubarb’ ten years ago by typing the correct spelling into a search engine, then the error ‘rubarb’. ‘Rhubarb is still the dominant one by a factor of 50. Borrowed words in English: tracing the changing patterns. In Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English I examine how words borrowed from different languages have influenced English throughout its history. The above feature summarizes some of the main data from the book, focussing on the fourteen sources that have given the most words to English, as reflected by the new and revised entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. Using the date buttons at the top of the graphic, you can compare the impact that different languages have made on English over time.
In the “per period” view, you can see the proportions of words coming into English from each source in 50-year slices from 1150 up to the present day. Compare for instance how the input from German has grown and then declined again from 1800 to the present day. (The earliest period, pre-1150, is much longer than 50 years, because more precise dating of words from this early stage in the history of English is very problematic.)
A truly global sweep The elephant in the room. Language change in spoken English. Influenced by others Language also changes very subtly whenever speakers come into contact with each other. No two individuals speak identically: people from different geographical places clearly speak differently, but even within the same small community there are variations according to a speaker’s age, gender, ethnicity and social and educational background. Through our interactions with these different speakers, we encounter new words, expressions and pronunciations and integrate them into our own speech. Even if your family has lived in the same area for generations, you can probably identify a number of differences between the language you use and the way your grandparents speak.
Every successive generation makes its own small contribution to language change and when sufficient time has elapsed the impact of these changes becomes more obvious. Listen to these recordings in this section, which illustrate important, recent changes in spoken English. Attitudes to language change. What is Morphology? Online Etymology Dictionary.