The Story of English in 100 Words Read Online Free PDF Page A

Any warrior living there would make nightly visits to the
medu-heall
(‘mead-hall’) or
medu-seld
(‘mead-house’) – the equivalent of the modern city hall – where his leader would be holdingcourt and feasting. How would he get there? By walking along a
medu-stig
(‘path to the mead-hall’) through the
medu-wang
(‘land surrounding the mead-hall’). All roads, it seemed, led to mead.
    Once inside the hall, the vocabulary of mead was all around him. The place to sit was called a
medubenc
(‘mead-bench’) or
medu-setl
(‘mead-seat’). He and his fellow-warriors would engage in a lengthy bout of
medu-drinc
(‘mead-drinking’), taking a
meduscenc
(‘draught of mead’) from a
medu-full
(‘mead-cup’). He would soon get
medu-gal
(‘enthused by the mead’) and experience
medu-dream
(‘mead-joy’). If he had too much, he would end up
medu-werig
(‘mead-weary’).
    It’s fascinating to see a word being used in this way, permeating so many aspects of social behaviour. And it’s a feature of English which we continue to exploit today.
Whisky drinkers
might buy a
whisky bottle
from a
whisky shop
or (in olden days) a
whisky house
, and pour a
whisky peg
from a
whisky decanter
into a
whisky glass
. They might become
whisky sodden
or develop a
whisky voice
. On the other hand, we don’t extend the usage as much as the Anglo-Saxons did. We don’t usually talk about
whisky seats
,
whisky paths
or
whisky joy
.
    In the Middle Ages, mead changed its social standing in Britain. Wine became the drink of choice among the upper class, leaving mead, along with ale and cider, as the drink of the poor. Mead never died out as a drink, but it took second place to ale andcider, which were much easier to brew.
Ale
is used fifteen times in Shakespeare;
mead
not once.
    Gradually, mead came back into fashion, sometimes developing new uses and shifting its meaning. In the 17th century it could be used to mean any sweet drink. Robert Burton used the term
mead-inn
in 1632, referring particularly to Russian drinking practices – a tavern where mead was the main drink sold. People in Britain in the 18th century drank
mead wine
.
    In the USA, the name took on a different sense, referring to various sweet carbonated drinks sometimes flavoured with sarsaparilla. Americans continue to be strongly interested in mead today. There’s an International Mead Association, and a festival is held every year in Colorado. New
mead
-words continue to be coined. The occasion is a
meadfest
, and many
meaderies
and
mead-lovers
attend. There are
meadmaking
courses,
meadings
(tasting parties) and if you want you can read a
meadzine
.
    But beware: don’t mix up the ‘drink’ sense of the word
mead
with another sense which is recorded in English from a few centuries later – a shortened form of
meadow
. When you see such words as
mead-flower
,
meadsweet
and
meadwort
, these are all meadow flowers. They have nothing to do with the drink. And if you know a road called the
Meadway
, that’s the ‘meadow’ sense too, and a later development. It’s
mead
in the ‘drink’ sense that fascinates linguists, because it’s part of a window into the origins of English.

Merry
    a dialect survivor (9th century)
    The first time we see the word
merry
is in an Old English manuscript, made by or for King Alfred, at the end of the ninth century. Except we don’t actually see
merry
, spelled like that. What we see is
myrige
, which would have been pronounced something like ‘mi-ree-yuh’.
    There were many words in Old English written with that letter
y
. It seems to have represented a vowel sound pronounced high up in the front of the mouth, a bit like the
i
of
sit
, but with rounded lips. We can hear the same sound today in the way many Scots people pronounce
you
, or the way the French say
tu
. By the Middle Ages, people must have stopped rounding their lips, because the scribes started writing the word with an
i
. Middle English manuscripts show such