1066 CE: Anglo-Norman In 1066 the Normans (what is now Northern France) invaded England and took over, they brought their language with them and created a language called ‘Anglo-Norman’ which was a sort of mix of Old English and Old French, but they had trouble making it stick, it was mostly spoken by the ruling…

400 CE: Latin The Roman empire grew and spread from Italy between 100 and 400 CE taking Latin with it, the Romans took an interesting approach to culture – everyone should be Roman, so Latin was really pressed upon the British people during the Roman occupation. Again religion played a part, this time it was…

1500 BCE: Greek In around 1500 BCE The Greeks were inventing the alphabet – it wasn’t the first written language of course, but it was the first that used the system of consonants and vowel sounds that we use today. The word alphabet actually comes from Alpha Beta – the first two letters of the…

Our story starts with Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, proto meaning ‘original’ – as in prototype; as the name suggests, it was the common tongue from which all modern Indian and European languages came. It was spoken in around 4500 BCE. The language was a lot more basic than what we have now and there were far…

Machine – An apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task. The word ‘machine’ dates back to the 1540s, it came across from French, where the word meant the same as it does today. ‘Machine’ is derived from the Latin word ‘machina’ meaning ‘machine’…

Mace – A heavy club with a spiked metal head. The word ‘mace’ comes from Old French and is originally derived from the Latin word ‘mateola’ which meant ‘Mallet’.

Macabre – Disturbing because concerned with or causing a fear of death. Macabre is derived from the Latin word ‘Maccabees’ – who were the leaders of a Jewish rebel army that took control of Judea in around 164 BCE (Maccabee was a family name). The Greeks thought they were pretty horrid and used the phrase…

Lunatic is actually from the Latin ‘lunaticus’, with ‘luna’ meaning ‘moon’ and ‘ticus’ meaning ‘struck’, giving us ‘moon-struck’. Referring to perceived periodic changes of mental stability of the mentally ill, in line with the phases of the moon. The word travelled through 13th century French as ‘lunatique’ to become ‘lunatic’ today.

Loophole: Is made up of ‘Loop’, which actually originates in the Latin ‘loupa’, later ‘loupe’ in middle English, which meant a small window. And ‘hole’, which comes from the proto-Indo-European (PIE) word ‘kel’, which later became ‘hul’ in early German and ‘hohl’ in modern German. Today loophole is used to mean an almost unnoticeable hole…