this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Linguistics

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Five common English words we don't know the origins of—including 'boy' and 'dog' (phys.org)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (2 children)
  1. Bird
  2. Boy
  3. Girl
  4. Dog
  5. Recorder (Instrument)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)
  1. 🐦
  2. 👱‍♂️
  3. 👧
  4. 🐕
  5. 🪈
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Case solved!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

"The naming process, the act of naming the items of the world, is as old as the first words spoken by our ancestors." is the least said with the most words I've seen in a fair while!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

The first 4 I can understand. Single syllable words, hard to trace or make guesses about.

Recorder has always puzzled me. It's such a specific word, and never made any sense to me. I hope the article author succeeds in finding an answer.