A WANDER THROUGH THE WONDER OF SOME FASCINATING ENGLISH WORDS
Gail Symington, retired, School of Languages and Literatures, Classics Section, University of Cape Town
Thursday 18–Friday 19 January 11.15 am COURSE FEES R220; Staff and students R110
Studying the etymology of words often leads to some interesting discoveries. What does hysteria have to do with the womb? Vaccine with cows? Halcyon days with kingfisher birds? Idiot with politics?
We shall also investigate the continuing evolution of English vocabulary: words are constantly being created or mutated to better represent our lives and culture. There are countless concepts, feelings, situations, not to mention emerging technologies and gadgets that don’t have a word to describe them – so we make them up or give new meanings to existing words to fill in the gaps.
Lecture titles
- The etymology of words
- The evolution of words
Recommended reading
Merriam-Webster. 1991. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster Inc.
Hughes, G. 2000. A History of English Words. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Forsyth, M. 2011. Etymologicon. New York: Berkley Books, published by the Penguin Group Inc. Crystal, D. 2006. Word, Words, Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oliver, H. 2010. Bees’ Knees and Barmy Armies. London: John Blake Publishing Ltd.
TO BOOK:
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