Re: THEORY: irregular conlangs

----- Original Message -----
From: Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 1999 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: irregular conlangs


> Eric Christopherson wrote (wrought?):
>
> >> Like "wrought", originally the past tense of "work", but now a seperate
> >> verb.  Presumably, when the regular "worked" was used, some speakers
> >> retained "wrought", but since they were few, people thought it was a
> >> different verb.
> >
> >I thought wrought was the past tense of wreak...
>
> I believe that "wreak" and "work" were originally different forms of the
> same word - perhaps the same word in different dialects of Old English?
> The "wreak" form survives only in "wreak havoc" and maybe one or two
> other fixed expressions, while the "work" form has been generalised.
Well, that was my idea, but I recently looked it up in a dictionary of
etymology, which said that it came from an OE verb meaning something like
"inflict," if I'm not mistaken (which I quite possibly am, as I don't have
the book in front of me. In any case it seemed to come from a different
root).