Monday, August 15, 2011

Fun with English.

-ee

eak/each

ight

ought/aught…

Notes

wreak

wrought

Thinking about this is what started this whole table.

see

seek

sight

sought

Here’s a nice complete version.

teach

[tight???]

taught

Variation of -ch and -k. All would have been like a Scottish or German ch back in the day (where BITD means late medieval period mas o menos).

may

[meek???]

might

(I’ll note here that “ought” seems like avoir in the French to have become merely an “ending” as a modal verb.)

buy

bight

bought

(Is this why Microsoft picked “Bing™” as their search engine name? Get that subliminal “Buy! buy! buy!” message in there.) I’m having trouble envisioning a semantic connection between “bight” and buying. Anyone?

vie (fie?)

fight

fought

catch

caught

think

thought

I suspect that an original -in- shifted to an -ee- , lengthening in compensation for dropping the n, but I may have it backwards.

drink

draught

Aha! Why draught is spelt as it is!

sink

shaft

Mining on the brain?

bring

[bright???]

brought

Here, the -ink has softened into an -ing.

light

laughter

I would love for these to be connected. Too good to be true?

plea

plight

flee

flight

knee

knight

Knights kneel to be knighted. “Kinn-nigget” isn’t a bad approximation of the BITD pronunciation.

[free???] fray

freak

fright

fraught

“Freak” is speculative because it’s awfully nouny, and everything in its column so far is solidly in the verb camp.


Blue indicates speculations. Red things that on semantic grounds don't seem to belong. I came up with this before (while?) falling asleep the other night. Its sense may be naught.

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