Words and Phrases.
'JMIE WEALTH of words in the English language, says Jespersen, has its seamy side. Discussing the influences that brought words into the language, especially from Latin, he points out w’hat a surprising number of native nouns there are with foreign adjectives, such as mouth (oral), nose (nasal), eye (ocular), mind (mental), ron (filial), ox (bovine), worm (vermicular), house (domestic), the middle ages (mediaeval), book (literary), moon (lunar), sun (solar), star (stellar), town (urban), man (human, virile), and so on. It cannot be pretended, he says, that all of these adjectives are used on account of any real deficiency in the English language, as it has quite a number of endings by which to turn substantives into adjectives, such as en (silken), y (flowery), ish (girlish), ly (fatherly), like (fishlike), some (burdensome) ful (sinful), and these might have been utilised still more than they have been. TOUCHSTONE.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19340723.2.69
Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 23 July 1934, Page 6
Word Count
149Words and Phrases. Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 23 July 1934, Page 6
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