Week 4 (January 28): Early modern lexicon (mostly classical & Romance loanwords)

• Mandatory: explain the formal and semantic relationship between the “doublets” in one of the pairs from List 1. Do the words come from different principal parts of the same Latin verb? from the same word but via French and via Latin? What is the relationship in meaning between the words?
  
• Choice: explain how one of the words from one of lists 2-4 entered the English language. Focus on the moment of borrowing (as far as you can tell from what has happened to survive and what the OED editors happen to have included). Why that word from that language? Did English already have a synonym? If so, how does the new word fit into the lexicon?

By Monday January 13th, please email me with your choices: your preferred 3 from LIST 1 (poor/pauper, royal/regal, elect/elite, for instance) and your preferred 3 other words (can be from more than one list and you are welcome to give me more than 3: (e.g., apostrophe, electric, squalor) or to suggest a word of your own choice.

I’ll let you know in class on January 14th which topics you’ve got.

Here is the OED for you to play with.

LIST 1
• aggrieve, aggravate (Rebecca)
• confer, collate
• confound, confuse (Tim)
• convince, convict (Susana)
• count, compute
• elect, elite (Dane)
• esteem, estimate
• poor, pauper (Cheratra)
• ray, radius (Alex)
• repel, repulse (Jan)
• royal, regal (Andrea)
• rule, regulate (Dale)
• spice, species (Zach)
• strait, strict (Jennifer)
• sure, secure
• transfer, translate (Brad)
• a pair of your choice

List 3a: attract, compass (Tim), lodestone, magnet, magnetic/al, polarity, pole.
List 3b: elastic, electric, fluid (Rebecca), gas, gravity, inertia (Dale), matter, pressure, temperature.

List 4: area, commemorate, exit, frequency, imitate (Brad), immaturity, innuendo, investigate, invitation, officiate, relaxation, relevant, squalor (Zach), susceptible