Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday and Just Jot It January is: “wood/would.” Use one, use both, use them any way you would like. Have fun!

Would is so much more civilized than should. “Would you…” is a polite query. “Should you…” has a bit more edge. It sounds riskier, a little judgemental. “You should…” are some of the most hateful phrases ever thought or uttered. We should get rid of most of the you shoulds; maybe put them behind a wall by writ of an executive order. Could often sounds wistful, tinged with melancholy. Things you could have done, but didn’t, and maybe should have, or you would have, given half a chance. Woulda coulda shoulda. You can Google that old saw and get lots of really touchy-feely Internet quasi-inspirational images, suitable for framing on Facebook.

Or not.

In typing those words though, I wonder about that L in there. What’s that about? Since I have Google open (like it is a long way to get up and go turn on Teh Googles), let’s just look that up. What ever did we do before Google? Oh, I know, we just made shit up and pretended. Now we look shit up and pretend we knew it all along, and here’s the cool part, people believe it! Learn to Google quickly in IM and your perceived IQ gets megawattage.

Ah, Interwebs, when you aren’t making us stupid and crazy, you are a wondrous thing. There seems to be an Online Etymology Dictionary, and I will blindly believe the entry for would as: Old English wolde, past tense and past subjunctive of willan “to will.” Would-be (adj.) “wishing to be, vainly pretending” is first recorded c. 1300.

Cool, while that explains the L, it leads one to ask, “Then why is there a U in it?” And if this isn’t a true stream of consciousness ramble, then I don’t know what is. Should has an L in it for similar reasons “c. 1200, from Old English sceolde, past tense of sceal” but that still doesn’t answer about the U. At first could just doesn’t seem to fit at all with “Old English cuðe, past tense of cunnan “to be able” until you read the last bit, “The unetymological -l- was added 15c.-16c. on model of would, should, where it is historical.” Wait. Wut? So, the L was added to could so that it would line up with would and should, got that. It reads like there is a historical reference for this happening. So how is that unetymological? Isn’t that the etymology of the thing? Damn you Interwebs and Googles! This is the kind of thing that has me sitting in front of the monitor for way too long into the night.

What is it with the English and their extra U’s?

american-british-ultra-english

 

 

 

 

9 Comments

  1. That last paragraph was too much for me to try and figure out, but I can contribute by saying that I kind of like all the extra “U”s. It gives me an idea of who I’m talking to on here:)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Extra U’s can be deceiving though. Are you talking to a Canadian? Aussie? Brit? I also know several Americans, who for whatever reason, insert the extra U’s. Maybe they grew up reading Austen? 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      1. True…I never do know where they are from, so I let my brain turn them into a character…like when you read a book. Your mind creates an image of who the person is. I’ve done that on here and assumed that a lot of my friends were from Australia for some reason. Turns out, most of them were UK😂

        Liked by 1 person

    1. My friends list is overrepresented by people who stick extra U’s in words. 🙂 We poke at each other, back and forth, about things. Not like there’s *anything* to poke fun about over here on this side of the Pond.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. I like finding the origin of words and spellings too, to a certain extent and then I could go nuts. I like the difference in American English and British English spellings. If I try to spell a word the British way my computer goes error, error, error….well actually it makes a red squiggley line. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Computer checks are notoriously wonky. The other day one accepted my typing of “craptastic” without a blink, but it didn’t like my typing “its” in a grammatically correct way.

      Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.