All posts tagged "etymology"
Zero Phones and Markers: Not All Letters Spell SoundsWriting is not sounds written down. The primary function of English spelling is to represent meaning. Sounds do matter, but not...
InformationApril 25, 2021- Word Matrix: Tract
<tract> “draw, drag, move,” from stem of trahere “to pull, draw” Words Sums Tract -> tract Tract + s -> tracts Tract +...
InformationFebruary 4, 2021 - Word Matrix: Augur(e)
<augur(e)> “predict, foretell” from French inauguration and directly from Late Latin inaugurationem, presumably originally “installment under good omens,” from in– “on,...
InformationJanuary 19, 2021 - Word Matrix: Thank
<thank> “thought, gratitude; think, feel,” from Old English þancian, þoncian, compare related Old English noun þanc, þonc Words Sums Thank + s -> thanks Thank...
InformationNovember 13, 2020 - Word Matrix: Sign
<sign> from Latin signum “identifying mark, token, indication, symbol; proof” Words Sums (248) Sign -> sign Sign + s -> signs...
InformationJuly 17, 2020 - Thieves, Knives, and Chiefs and English Plurals
English is rule-based. I repeat: Like all languages, English is rule-based. A tweet recently appeared in my Twitter feed in which...
InformationMay 3, 2020 - Why Are <talk>, <walk>, and <stalk> Spelled with <l>?
Yesterday I introduced my 5-year-old to the words <talk> and <walk>. He knows that graphemes can spell sounds, specifically that <l>...
InformationFebruary 3, 2020 - Why Is <broad> Spelled with the <oa> Digraph?
Yesterday I posted on my social media about the spelling of the word <broad>. I just introduced the <oa> grapheme to...
InformationJanuary 23, 2020 - Word Matrix: Leve
I always misspell the word <relevant> as <*relavant> based on a thinking that <relevant> is related to <relative>. I recently decided...
InformationJanuary 22, 2020 - <Urine> and My Phonics Phail
I grew up in the 1990s. I entered kindergarten in 1990 and began learning to read that year. Phonics and sight...
InformationJanuary 15, 2020 - From Felines to Street Drugs to Zero Phones: <cat>, <methcathinone>, and <ephedron>
You never know where a word study will take you. A while back, my oldest and I did a word study...
InformationDecember 20, 2019 - Word Matrix: Anxi
<Anxi> ”uneasy, troubled in mind” from Latin anxius Note: The base is <anxi>. The <i> is part of the base because...
InformationSeptember 28, 2019 - Word Matrix: Doodle
While reading some books about the history of words earlier this year, I came across the word <fopdoodle>, which means “a...
InformationSeptember 10, 2019 - Word Matrix: D (“set, put”)
Back at the end of July, I investigated the words <add> and <addition>. I undercovered the base <d>, but I misidentified...
InformationSeptember 3, 2019 - Word Matrix: Ply (“lay, fold, twist”)
I recently came across a tweet in a Twitter conversation that argued that studying morphemes is not always helpful. A morpheme...
InformationAugust 20, 2019
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