John McWhorter
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
That's right.
That's a pleasing idea, especially for language people.
Yeah, I have ...
I have a related question then.
A lot of what is in a language is dragged along, like to use an aging analogy, tin cans dragged along behind a car after a wedding.
I've never actually seen that outside of a cartoon, but it must have happened at some point, probably in the 50s, but that.
And so, so much of language is that, for example,
In the English language, we'll say something like to dribble.
Now, that comes from drip.
So a drip is just drip, drip.
And then dribble is like that.
Now, you think, well, okay, that's just that one.
But then imagine you are nipping on something.
So you just go like a wolf, nipping.
But then nibble is kind of like...
And so that O means and we use it in words like a giggle and spackle and sparkle.
One spark is you get shocked from a fuse that goes out.
Sparkle is...
like that.
Now, we can't make any new words with ol anymore.