There is benefit to all in learning Latin. I cannot explain it, it's one of those things you just have to experience.

Not to mention that it will become a gateway drug... Attic Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac, Aramaic... I don't know them just yet, but Latin makes me want to learn it all!

Nice article.

Etymonline.com is one of my favorite websites. I had no idea it had a blog though - thanks for posting. I love the description of English as “Built from half-Frenchified Roman marble and local wattle-and-daub.”

BTW: The image on the page is "Der Abend" ("The evening") from Caspar David Friedrich's "Tageszeitenzyklus" ("Time of Day Cycle") from 1821/22. The reproduction on the page seems to be somewhat overexposed. Wikipedia has it a lot darker: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caspar_David_Friedri... -- I personally have not yet seen the original painting, but in view of other Caspar David Friedrichs and considering its title, the darker version seems more accurate to me.

It saddens me to think that alphabetization is going the way of the dodo. It was a gateway drug into computer science for me.

I saw a video claiming that Germanic words beginning with sn- all have to do with the nose. For example “snoop”, “snob”, “sniff”, “snarl”.

I dreame of a setmoot wishtongue that riddes English of the mute endes and comes again to the grounde and wefte that Roman-speak still ownes.

He writes, he is a writer. I sleepe, I be a sleeper. For truth, there is Anglish, but the end speakes akin to a Scotch pirater. My setmoot wishtongue has a lilt like Swedish chef.

Read Chaucer aloude and he singes.

Some of these sw-words are old norse, eg

    sware - "to answer" 

    sweger - "mother in law" 

    sweor - "father in law" 

Hey honey, would you like to swive tonight?