Adams ranges widely, energetically, from early modern English poetry to contemporary television, offering definitions, etymologies and theories of language development, all the while tracing patterns in the deployment of profanity in English.
He studied Sanskrit and the etymology of Indo-European languages.
What is the etymology of these words?
In Rootedness, Christy Wampole looks toward philosophy, ecology, literature, history, and politics to demonstrate how the metaphor of the root surfacing often in an unexpected variety of places, from the family tree to folk etymology to the language of exile developed in twentieth-century Europe.
Although the etymologizing of proper names appears in the Old Testament and Plato dealt with etymology in his dialogue Cratylus, lack of knowledge of other languages and of the historical developments that languages undergo prevented ancient writers from arriving at the proper etymologies of words.
The etymology of all the words for "work" in European languages suggests work as coercion, certainly not for the prosperity of the worker, but as a fulfilment of human destiny.
"The etymology of Davis Cup terminology continues to confound me," said Ossian Shine, author of The Language of Tennis, though he says rubber most likely dates back to the 16th century in other pastimes like the game of bridge.
We do, however, reap the rewards of her lifelong prodigious reading, as she investigates the cultural connotations of pain, from the etymology of the word in various languages to its interpretations.
Let us now delve into the etymology of these recent additions to the American language.
The artistry of the Chinese language and the history and etymology of characters enamors me.
Every journalist salivates at the prospect of raising the ire of a newsmaker, and I responded with a language column exhaustively exploring the etymology of that bovine epithet.
