Description

Note: This course on the origins of English words would likely help those who are struggling to learn English as their foreign language to understand the individual words better, and maybe even find connections to their own native languages so that they can find learning English much more enjoyable and easier. People who are already fluent in the English language may find their vocabulary greatly expanded through this course, and linguistic enthusiasts would likely find much interest in the origin and history of the very basic building blocks of the English language – words, and with this understanding I believe that they would leave with a much better appreciation of the language, as well as a better grasp of the synergy among the various languages and cultures of the world. COURSE DEscriptIONEnglish is changing all around us. We see this in new words such as “bling” and “email,” and from the loss of old forms such as “shall.” It’s a human impulse to play with language and to create new words and meanings—but also to worry about the decay of language. Does text messaging signal the end of“pure English”? Why do teenagers pepper their sentences with “like” and “you know”?By studying how and why language changes and the story behind the everyday words in our lexicon, we can learn a lot about ourselves—how our minds work and how our culture has changed over the centuries.Beyond this, words are enormously powerful. They can clarify or obscure the truth, set a political agenda, and drive commercial enterprises. They have the power to amuse and to hurt. They can connect us to each other or drive us apart. Sometimes words are unsayable, and other times words fail us completely because, for all the vibrancy and breadth of English, we still have major gaps in the lexicon.In The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins, you’ll get a delightful, informative survey of English, from its Germanic origins to the rise of globalization and cyber-communications. Award-winning Professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan approaches the subject like an archaeologist, digging below the surface to uncover the story of words, from the humble “she” to such SAT words as “conflagration” and “pedimanous.”In this course, you’ll    discover the history of the dictionary and how words make it into a reference book like the Oxford English Dictionary (OED);    survey the borrowed words that make up the English lexicon;    find out how words are born and how they die;    expand your vocabulary by studying Greek and Latin “word webs”; and    revel in new terms, such as “musquirt,” “adorkable,” and “struggle bus.”Professor Curzan celebrates English for all its nuances and curiosities. By stepping back to excavate the language as a linguist, she shows you there is no such thing as a boring word.Chart the Story of Cultural ContactWhy do most words for animals in the field—cow, sheep, pig, deer—come from Old English while most words for meat on the table—beef, mutton, pork, venison—come from French? It turns out that when the Normans invaded England in 1066, their language infiltrated ours, and English owes much to the Norman rulers of the 11th and 12th centuries.As you’ll learn in The Secret Life of Words, English is an omnivorous language and has borrowed heavily from the many languages it has come into contact with, from Celtic and Old Norse in the Middle Ages to the dozens of world languages in the truly global 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, the story of English is the story of cultural contact, as you’ll see when you    meet the Norman-French rulers who gave us much of our language for government, politics, the economy, and law;    encounter the infusion of Latin and Greek during the Renaissance, which provided English the language of science, the arts, music, education, literature, and linguistics; and    take an A-to-Z tour of words from the world’s languages, from Arabic, Bengali, and Chinese to Yiddish and Zulu.The world has never had a language as truly global as English, yet the language is not globally uniform. In addition to understanding the influence of cultural contact, you’ll learn about many of the regional differences within English, both inside the United States and throughout the world, with a specific look at British versus American English, the Midwest vowel shift, the synonyms of “y’all,” and more.As Professor Curzan takes you through the centuries and around the world to reveal how our language came to be, she unpacks the myth that there was once a “pure English” that we can look back to with nostalgia. Even during the Renaissance, English purists were concerned about the infiltration of foreign words into English. You’ll delight in learning about the “ink-horn controversy,” named for the purists’ objections to long, Latinate words that required more ink to write.This debate between the purists and the innovators has continued for centuries. Benjamin Franklin railed against using the word “notice” as a verb. Twentieth-century prescriptivists condemned the common use of the sentence adverb “hopefully.” And the stigma against the word “ain’t” is alive and well today. But are the prescriptivists right? Is English really in a state of decay?See Why It’s an Exciting Time for EnglishProfessor Curzan sympathizes with the impulse to conserve the old language, even citing the verb “interface” as one of the words she wishes would just go away. Yet despite this sympathy, she also recognizes the naturalness of change. Had the ink-horn purists had their way, we would be using Old English compounds such as “flesh-strings” for “muscles” and “bone-lock” for “joint.”Because our language is always in flux, a study of English words allows you to trace    technological innovations—“app,” “Google,” and the prefix “e-”;    historical events—“chad,” “9/11,” and “bailout”;    cultural changes—“flexitarian,” “unfriend”;    human creativity and playfulness—“Googleganger,” “Dracula sneeze,” and “multislacking”; and    conversational discourse markers—“um,” “well,” “now.”In fact, Professor Curzan points out that with the rise of electronically mediated communication, future linguists may look back on the late 20th and early 21st centuries as a key moment in the language’s history, as revolutionary as the printing press. Throughout The Secret Life of Words, she reflects on such questions as these:    Where do new words come from? Who has the authority to coin a word?    How have text messaging, social media, and instant messaging affected our use of language?    Who owns language? Can a corporation control a word?    Is it possible to reform language?Along the way you’ll look at gendered language and how words such as “hussy” and “mistress” have become pejorative; Internet communications and the nuance to acronyms such as “LOL”; technology-inspired new language such as “texting”; taboo words; and the language of sports, politics, love, and war.You’ll discover that far from being a mere practicality, wordplay is a uniquely human form of entertainment. This course provides a wonderful opportunity to study slang and the creation of new words. You may not come away using terms like “whatevs,” “traffic-lighty,” or “struggle bus” in casual conversation, but you’ll love studying the linguistic system that gives us such irreverent—and fun—slang, from “boy toy” to “cankles.”A Vibrant, Professional GuideAt the heart of this course is the wonderful Professor Curzan. With energy, enthusiasm, and a democratic approach to language, she takes you on a journey from Beowulf and the Battle of Hastings to modern-day blogs and chat rooms. She brings you teenage slang and Internet-speak, and she delves deeply into the history of English and the field of linguistics.As an award-winning professor, a member of the American Dialect Society, and a member of the American Heritage Dictionary’s usage panel, Professor Curzan knows her material, and she presents a wealth of information in this comprehensive course. But since the material is so enjoyable—“geektastic,” you might say—it hardly feels like learning.By course end, you’ll come away with a new appreciation for the many varieties of English, and you’ll be equipped with the tools to build on these linguistic foundations. From the subtle negotiation of a word like “well” in conversation to the hidden relationship between “foot” and “pedestrian,” once you begin to explore the secret life of words, your understanding of English will never be the same.Lectures1. Winning Words, Banished Words 2. The Life of a Word, from Birth to Death 3. The Human Hands behind Dictionaries 4. Treasure Houses, Theft, and Traps 5. Yarn and Clues—New Word Meanings 6. Smog, Mob, Bling—New Words 7. “Often” versus “Offen”—Pronunciation 8. Fighting over Zippers 9. Opening the Early English Word-Hoard 10. Safe and Sound—The French Invasion 11. Magnifical Dexterity—Latin and Learning 12. Chutzpah to Pajamas—World Borrowings 13. The Pop/Soda/Coke Divide 14. Maths, Wombats, and Les Bluejeans 15. Foot and Pedestrian—Word Cousins 16. Desultory Somersaults—Latin Roots 17. Analogous Prologues—Greek Roots 18. The Tough Stuff of English Spelling 19. The b in Debt—Meddling in Spelling 20. Of Mice, Men, and Y’All 21. I’m Good … Or Am I Well? 22. How Snuck Sneaked In 23. Um, Well, Like, You Know 24. Wicked Cool—The Irreverence of Slang 25. Boy Toys and Bad Eggs—Slangy Wordplay 26. Spinster, Bachelor, Guy, Dude 27. Firefighters and Freshpersons 28. A Slam Dunk—The Language of Sports 29. Fooling Around—The Language of Love 30. Gung Ho—The Language of War 31. Filibustering—The Language of Politics 32. LOL—The Language of the Internet 33. #$@%!—Forbidden Words 34. Couldn’t (or Could) Care Less 35. Musquirt and Other Lexical Gaps 36. Playing Fast and Loose with Words MEET YOUR PROFESSORDr. Anne Curzan is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English at the University of Michigan. She earned a B.A. in Linguistics from Yale University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan.Professor Curzan has won several awards for teaching, including the University of Michigan’s Henry Russel Award, the Faculty Recognition Award, and the John Dewey Award. Her research interests include the history of English, language and gender, corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, pedagogy, and lexicography. In addition to writing numerous articles, reviews, and edited volumes, Professor Curzan is the author of Gender Shifts in the History of English and the coauthor of How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction and First Day to Final Grade: A Graduate Student’s Guide to Teaching.Beyond her teaching and research interests, she is a member of the American Dialect Society and sits on the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary. She can also be found talking about language in her column, “Talking About Words,” in Michigan Today and on the segment, “That’s What They Say,” on Michigan Radio.Reviews (from The Great Courses Website)best Christmas gift 2013Date:January 24, 2013″With a B.A. in English (UCI, 1969), I’ve carried the burden of correct spelling, grammar, punctuating etc. ever since then. Add to that my genetic predisposition to spot typos, and I can become a total jerk about WHAT’S PROPER ENGLISH. Well, I can put down that burden now, thanks to Professor Curzan. I no longer feel obligated to support the “never stable” apostrophe. I’m giving up on apostrophes in plurals, in it’s when they mean its, in your when they mean you’re. You get my drift. . . such a fascinating series of lectures! I’m almost finished with my first listening, and I think I’ll just start over to glean even more wonderful info about this living, breathing, ever-changing “mutt” of a language I call my native tongue.”6 out of 6 found this review helpfulinformative, interesting, and entertainingDate:January 23, 2013″This is an extemely engaging course, quite thorough in its scope. I enjoyed every lecture; Prof. Curzan loves words and her enthusiasm comes across. She’s an excellent speaker.I have the same reaction to this course as I had to the two McWhorter languages courses that I took on CD: I wish I could remember 1/10th of the interesting examples and stories from each lecture. So much of the course involves extremely interesting stories about single words. Nonetheless, you get both the detail and the important themes about the origin and evolution of English, how slang arises, and so on. All in all, this is an extremely enjoyable and worthwhile course.”6 out of 6 found this review helpful.Very fun, very informativeDate:January 18, 2013″I’ve listened to many of the Great Courses. This one is the most engaging and fun. Professor Curzan has a chatty presentation style that is nevertheless orderly and easy to follow. And she knows the subject, from the earliest Greek etymology to the latest leetspeak.”4 out of 4 found this review helpfulIt’s awesome, but …Date:January 5, 2013″Why doesn’t it have a PDF file as well as some other courses?It’s really fantastic, and I have learned at least one thing even from the lectures which are not necessary for me.But the only thing that I miss is a PDF file or a script of the lectures.Does it contain?”3 out of 7 found this review helpful