The fact that "nearer" is technically a double comparative (nigh-er-er) is the kind of etymological absurdity that makes language so fun to dig into.
What strikes me is how these orphaned comparatives reveal old family trees — "to boot" as the last surviving relative of bote/better/best is like finding a linguistic fossil hiding in plain sight.
Also: that punchline about nigh/near/next may be the best etymology joke I've read this year.
Great piece. I loved "rathest" and "nethermore," and also Joyce's "sllt" bit with the printing press. It reminded of his cat who meows with "mkgnao" and "mrkgnao" and "mrkrgnao."
A very nice column!
The delightful, and erudite, BBC program “What’s The
Good Word” taught me that you can’t put your best foot forward unless you have three feet.
I also learned that Still Waters don’t run deep, because still waters don’t run at all.
I believe they’ve archived the program somewhere, and it’s well worth finding.
The fact that "nearer" is technically a double comparative (nigh-er-er) is the kind of etymological absurdity that makes language so fun to dig into.
What strikes me is how these orphaned comparatives reveal old family trees — "to boot" as the last surviving relative of bote/better/best is like finding a linguistic fossil hiding in plain sight.
Also: that punchline about nigh/near/next may be the best etymology joke I've read this year.
Great piece. I loved "rathest" and "nethermore," and also Joyce's "sllt" bit with the printing press. It reminded of his cat who meows with "mkgnao" and "mrkgnao" and "mrkrgnao."
You gotta love language in all its strained and overdone forms.
To learn, and to learn new meanings of 'old friend' words to boot, is wordplay that I would rathest of all word plays dabble in!