word

Helter-skelter

lfsaldenbirch , , , ,
  • 06.012 and helter-skelter down here.

A word of which OED says:

Etymology: A jingling expression vaguely imitating the hurried clatter of feet rapidly and irregularly moved, or of many running feet.

Therefore this word will be added to the onomatopoeia tag!

“helter-skelter, adv., adj., n., and v.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/85762. Accessed 14 September 2017.

Helm

lfsaldenbirch , ,

“Helm” is interchangeable with “helmet”, but listed by OED as the archaic and poetic form.

  • 06.067 and helmets,
  • 12.014 could dimly be seen coats of mail, helms and axes, swords and spears hanging;
  • 13.037 A light helm of figured leather,
  • 13.042 and their bright helms with their tattered hoods,
  • 17.066 a stone hurtling from above smote heavily on his helm,
  • 18.011 But I have a helm

“helm, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 25 July 2015.

Hell

lfsaldenbirch , ,

Isn’t it fascinating to find a word from Christian cosmology and wonder?  Is this translation-from-Westron just a figure of speech “the emphatic thing that one says to punch up ‘what William was thinking'”?  Does it mean “absence of grace”?  “Place of punishment”  Where does it lie in between?

  • 02.045 “What the ‘ell William was a-thinkin’ of

Heather

lfsaldenbirch ,

Scrubby plants of the genus Erica– whcih may grow on a type of land called “heath“.  Heath and heather seem to have developed separately as words – the plant in England was called “ling” until the 1800s.  Hmmm.

  • 03.007 a wide land the colour of heather
  • 03.009 and others were half covered with moss or heather.
  • 19.011 The wind’s in the tree-top, the wind’s in the heather;

“heather, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 25 July 2015.