It might’ve made more sense in Orwell’s time, both because the Latin-origin <> “overly fancy” correlation was higher, and because fancy public-school educated writers of his time were expected to automatically know which words were of Latin origin, and/or had a much poorer sense of which words are statistically common.
Also he was British, and I think the class divide in etymology is stronger there than it is here, and would have been stronger at the time than it is now.
Your rewrite seemed ‘Southern’ to me, so probably there’s still some class effect (although it also seemed ‘old-timey’).
Quick search indicates that Churchill is the originator of the sentiment, which makes more sense (earlier, more general-audience, maybe useful for a politician to subtly signal some nationalism, etc).
Quick search indicates that Churchill is the originator of the sentiment
Where did you hear that? The Fowlers’ classic 1906 guide says “Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance” and the opinion was already standard at that time.
Your rewrite seemed ‘Southern’ to me, so probably there’s still some class effect (although it also seemed ‘old-timey’).
Yeah tbf I did stack the cards a little for the rewrite, leaning into phrasings like “a word’s wellspring” rather than “where the word comes from” for “etymology.” Obviously Orwell himself is too good a writer to make such elementary mistakes.
Interesting on the “Southern” effect, I wonder if language shift is faster in the North/West than the South.
Oh, cool thought! I was thinking it’s just more straightforwardly Anglo-Saxon, except for the areas with strong French influence, owing to the waves of German settlement.
was also rhyming with the ‘southern English is closer to colonial-era English than modern British English’ fun-fact that I often hear floating around.
It might’ve made more sense in Orwell’s time, both because the Latin-origin <> “overly fancy” correlation was higher, and because fancy public-school educated writers of his time were expected to automatically know which words were of Latin origin, and/or had a much poorer sense of which words are statistically common.
Also he was British, and I think the class divide in etymology is stronger there than it is here, and would have been stronger at the time than it is now.
Your rewrite seemed ‘Southern’ to me, so probably there’s still some class effect (although it also seemed ‘old-timey’).
Quick search indicates that Churchill is the originator of the sentiment, which makes more sense (earlier, more general-audience, maybe useful for a politician to subtly signal some nationalism, etc).
Where did you hear that? The Fowlers’ classic 1906 guide says “Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance” and the opinion was already standard at that time.
Yeah tbf I did stack the cards a little for the rewrite, leaning into phrasings like “a word’s wellspring” rather than “where the word comes from” for “etymology.” Obviously Orwell himself is too good a writer to make such elementary mistakes.
Interesting on the “Southern” effect, I wonder if language shift is faster in the North/West than the South.
Oh, cool thought! I was thinking it’s just more straightforwardly Anglo-Saxon, except for the areas with strong French influence, owing to the waves of German settlement.
was also rhyming with the ‘southern English is closer to colonial-era English than modern British English’ fun-fact that I often hear floating around.