Start comes from the the Middle English sterten; akin to Middle High German sterzen to stand up stiffly, move quickly. This meaning evolved by c. 1300 to “awaken suddenly, flinch or recoil in alarm,” and by 1660s to “cause to begin acting or operating.” Meaning “begin to move, leave, depart” (without implication of suddenness) is […]
Stop!
After the success of my recent series on songs related to English contractions, I though I would see if the same might be true of Exclamations. So today we are going to begin with “Stop”. It first appeared in Old English as “stoppian,” which has, so far, only been found in the written record in […]
John Donne
John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary who was born in London in 1571 or 1572, into a recusant Roman Catholic family when practice of that religion was illegal in England. Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, married to one Elizabeth Heywood, was of Welsh […]
Stereopony
Stereopony was a Japanese pop rock band that formed in Okinawa, Japan in 2007 and disbanded in 2012. The three-girl band consisted of Aimi Haraguni (lead vocals and guitar), Nohana Kitajima (bass guitar), and Shiho Yamanoha (drums). Before their major debut, the band was named Mixbox. Under that name, the girls won the grand prize […]
Dovydas
Døvydas (or DOVYDAS aka; Revelstar Stellonaut, and previously known as David Smash is a Lithuanian-born musician, composer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Dovydas Maščinskas was born in Kaunas, the second largest city of Lithuania. His father is a painter, and his mother stayed at home to raise him. Døvydas began playing guitar at the age 13, and […]
Won’t
Today we come to our final delve into the world of contractions and the songs related to them (at least for the moment). Sometimes, when you forget to use an apostrophe, you get a word that’s just a misspelling of the original. But with won’t and wont, you get a word with its own completely […]
Don’t
So, today we move on to ‘Don’t’. Don’t is the earliest attested contraction of does not and until about 1900 was the standard spoken form in the U.S. (it survived as spoken standard longer in British English). Dialect surveys find it more common older informants. Surveys of attitudes toward usage show it more widely disapproved […]
Can’t
After our interesting delve into the word ‘Ain’t’ yesterday, I thought it might be interesting to follow that up with some songs using the word ‘Can’t’. The origin of the word is older easier to discover than ‘Ain’t’. It first appeared in 1597 as a contraction of the word ‘Cannot’. I was always told at […]
Ain’t
The word ‘ain’t‘ is a contraction for am not, is not, are not, has not, and have not in the common English language vernacular. In some dialects ain’t is also used as a contraction of do not, does not, and did not. The development of ain’t for the various forms of to be not, to […]
John Rutter
John Rutter was born in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutter grew up living over the Globe pub on London’s Marylebone Road. He was educated at Highgate School, where fellow pupils included John Tavener and as a chorister there took part in the first (1963) recording of Britten’s War Requiem […]