Where Words Come From

Bill Bryson's chapter was a humorous attempt to explain how words are formed in English and where they come from. English has borrowed heavily from many languages, most noticeably Latin, Greek, and French which has given it its unique sound, immense vocabulary and myriad of meanings. Just by reading the first paragraph I noticed how English has a word for everything like the fear of peanut butter sticking to your mouth: arachibutyrophobia. I wonder if every language is as colorful. I think its inventory of words is what helped English become so universal. English has borrowed so heavily that it can have a noun with a Latin derived synonym as in sneezing and sternutation (p69) where as other languages only have one word (i.e. Spanish: estornudar).

One major difference in the origin of words in English is that new words have mostly been the result of the information age and technology rather than of poetry. (76).

English is so versatile and adaptive that words are easily assimilated into its vocabulary and native speakers would hardly be able to guess at the words' etymology. For example the word breeze is from the Spanish briza or that bankrupt comes from the Italian expression bancarotta (p74).