Comments on: They, their, them, eggs and freckles!

By: Maeve

Maeve — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 13:15:30 +0000

Tom,
Thank you for the kind words.

You may have guessed that I love to write about words. Words give me the joy that some people get from collecting fossils.

By: Sharon Hurley Hall

Sharon Hurley Hall — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:30:24 +0000

Loved this post, Maeve. I have to disagree with Wedge, though. In the UK, people refer to feeling sick when they are nauseous, but ill if it’s a general malaise.

By: Wedge

Wedge — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:38:58 +0000

Fascinating, thank you.

I might suggest that ’sick’ in common usage no longer refers to vomiting but is a synonym for ‘ill’. You never hear a young person / child say ‘ill’.

By: Tim Fenelon

Tim Fenelon — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:47:55 +0000

Loved the article paricularly etymology of skirt and discussion of gama, anger and ire. There are many little gems throughout and the writing style is captivating.

Thought you might like to know the following:

I got pals of mine to search the site using:
They, their, them, eggs and freckles!
And it gave ‘no results’.

But a search using the same extract without the exclamation mark at the end did reveal the article.

Regards
Tim

By: Maeve

Maeve — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:05:19 +0000

Brad,
Thanks for the comment.

The verb till, meaning “to cultivate the land” is from an Old English word meaning “tend” or “work.”

The noun till, now meaning a place where cash is kept, may be from an Old French word which found its way into French in a round-about way from Old Norse.