Tuesday, April 22, 2014

A-to-Z Challenge: Storm

Letter S! Let’s get to it!


Storm! That should be fun, right?

Storm comes from the Old English word storm…which has the same meaning as we have. Sometimes they don’t even try to change things. Anyway! Before that, it comes from the Proto Germanic sturmaz, still meaning storm, and the Proto Indo European stur-mo-, which comes from the word stwer, turn or whirl (and which is also the ancestor of the word stir). Interesting how some words hardly change over thousands of years, and others like quit people can’t make up their minds on how to use.

Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

10 comments:

  1. love your theme of the history of words!
    rave is one of my favorite words and reminds me of alice in wonderland - she's stark raving mad!!

    one of my students' name is Storm Quick! he's as unique as his name =)

    happy a to z-ing!

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  2. Not even the winds of time could change it...

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  3. Let the storm rage on!

    And the cold never bothered me anyway. :)

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  4. I recall the more recent Germanic version used in the term sturm und drang. So sturmaz is where it comes from...

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  5. I wonder if the word has anything to do with the sound of thunder.

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  6. It's interesting how it didn't change from the Old English word when so many of them have. I find it very interesting to see how even the older versions aren't too dissimilar, though stwer is a little different.

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  7. I wonder if words relating to the natural world change less? Just hypothesizing...

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  8. I knew a Stormy once. Sweet girl.

    Sturmo might be a nice name. I have a villain who it might fit...

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  9. Yes, some words change so much while others don't.

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Please validate me.