Wednesday, February 27, 2013

silent t castle whistle wrestle

The English word castle and the French word chateau
are both from the same Latin word: castellum.
This watercolor was painted by the German artist
Albrecht Durer in  1502. 
Castle was spoken as castel before the year 1100. The word had come to England with the invading Roman soldiers who spoke the Latin word: castellum.

The French had spoken the word as chastel. The Spanish had merged the Latin word with Arabic al-qasr to say: alcazar.

You are speaking words passed down to you from the Roman soldiers who conquered England by the year 55 BC.
Let that be an honor as you say:

castle       thistle      bustle      rustle  

wrestle     whistle    hustle       turtle

Bustle comes from an ancient Norse word: busk, meaning to make oneself ready.

Hustle comes from the Old Dutch word: hutseln, meaning to shake things up, to hurry to make things ready.
Rustle, from the old Flemish: ruysselen, referring to the soft, fluttering sounds leaves make when the wind stirs them.

Wrestle from wrest, coming from truly ancient days in India: wer, meaning to twist and turn; writhe and wrestle come from wer. (writhe, say wri th, long i: My puppy was writhing in pain after it stuck its nose into a prickly thistle plant.)

Thistle, from ancient India: (s)teig, meaning a point, and prickly; Old English had it as distel.

Whistle comes to us from whisper, which comes from ancient India: kwei, meaning a hissing, or a quiet sound. Old English wrote whistle: hwistlian.

Turtle, do you say turtle with a silent t? Webster's dictionary shows tur tle, with the t spoken; from the Latin: tartaruca, then later, Old French tortue.

Notice the lessons on the right side of this blog. Also, you might like to look at my books to strengthen your child's reading skills. All my books teach the tricky phonics and a special comprehension method; the lessons are fun, interesting, and proven.

I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.

Contact me in the comment box below for a limited edition 200 page glossary of word origins.
Have fun with words. Thank you for visiting my blog, Mary Maisner

Monday, February 25, 2013

about Thomas Bewick


Puppies playing in the river
Carved into wood by Thomas Bewick (1753-1828)
Thomas Bewick had a hard time learning to read but discovered he was really talented at drawing animals.

Thomas Bewick lived at a time when many men made their living by carving. Beautiful items were made by carving into gold and silver, even copper, and tin.

By this time in history more and more people could sign their names. Still, people had signet rings and signet blocks and signet lockets carved for them. 

These signet items were special signs that stood for one's name, stood for one's signature. See the little word sign in signature?

After a document was written, these signet items were pressed into a blob of warm wax which was dripped on the bottom of the page. When the wax cooled and hardened, impressed upon it would be a lion, or a fox, etc. This wax sign was called a seal; the seal was a signature. We still use the word, seal, today, as in: the agreement was sealed with a handshake.

Young Thomas Bewick had the idea he could use metal carving tools to carve detailed pictures into a block of wood. After carefully carving the picture, he would dip it in ink, then press the woodcut onto paper. You can see Thomas Bewick's woodcuts online and at the your library.

Long before fingerprints were used to solve crimes, Thomas Bewick had the idea of using his fingerprint as a signature! He formed the habit of signing his name, then dipping his finger in ink and pressing his fingertip onto the paper near his name.

There is a word which refers to a special sign, like Bewick's fingerprint, or a special design someone draws when signing their name: paraph (pa raf, the 1st a is long, ph says f.). 

Sometimes a paraph is a swirling curlicue, or a snaking line drawn under the name, or even a tiny animal.  These days, paraphs are just for fun. Long ago, paraphs were an important way to know if a signature was genuine or a forgery.

You may like to look at the books I have to help your child become a reading Star. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. Lots of color pictures, a special comprehension method, and very interesting lessons. I never seem to run out of fun ways to teach reading. Thank you, Mary Maisner


Friday, February 22, 2013

hour, honor, honest, herb silent h


Rascal the Cat was stranded for an hour by the barking dog.
Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) carved this picture on wood,
 then dipped the wood in ink before pressing it on paper.

The h in hour has not been spoken since the days of the Roman gladiators. The Greek spelling for hour was hora. Originally the Greek word hora referred to seasons of the year.

Maybe horticulture (spoke h) which refers to the planting of food crops comes from hora. Look at the Greek word for garden: hortus.


An ancient word from India was the base for hora: yer. Year, comes to us from yer.

Honor comes to us from the Latin word, honorem, and Old French, honor. The letter h was kept for spelling, even after people stopped saying it. Look at the honor word family:

honor       honored         honorable           honorably          horonary

honors     honoring        dishonorable      dishonorably      honorarium 

honest   honesty    honestly     dishonest     dishonestly  
     
An honorarium is a small fee paid to someone for a speech or a special appearance.

Herb can be said with or without the h sound. The French picked up the word from the Roman soldiers who spoke Latin and spelled it herba. The French may have misheard the word. The French spelled it: erba.

Hubris comes to us from the Greek hybris, meaning behaving with too much pride, behaving with arrogance. Word historians, called etymologists, trace hybris back to ancient India. 
Ancient India used gweri, which meant to rush into doing something without considering one's actions carefully, behaving impetuously. Hubris is given the h sound in the dictionary but is also accepted without the h sound.

Use my blog's search box - top left corner - to find other reading lessons.

You may like to look at my books, all of which blend tricky phonics with a special comprehension method to give your child a rapid boost into excellent reading. All my books teach the lessons in a wide-range of word-difficulty levels so that your child can soar.

I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all of my books will pop up for you. Have fun reading with your child. Thank you, Mary Maisner

Thursday, February 21, 2013

gh in ghost

Albrecht Durer painted this watercolor
in 1494. A few years earlier, the letter h
had been added to the spelling of our
word ghost.
Our word ghost, started as gast. Gast was an Old English word which meant soul or spirit, the breath of life. Gast did not carry a meaning of whether the spirit was good or bad.

In the early 1400s, the scribes who wrote the notes and messages for the powerful people of that time, began inserting a letter h into gast.

The gh in ghost has nothing to do with the gh team we see in the knight, night, thought, caught word families.

The scribes of the early 1400's liked to appear to others to be extremely well educated. It made the scribes look smart and it gave them lots of power.

The printing press had not yet been invented. Everything was written and pictured by hand, usually by the hand of a scribe. In those days only a few people could sign their own names, most could not write anything at all.

Imagine a little scribe stuck in a boring monastery. This little scribe is looking through some ancient manuscripts. He sees the much, much older Indian word, gheis, and he understands that the Old English word gast must have come from gheis. Gheis had traveled with the traders from India to Greece, Rome, Germany, and Holland. And, to England. In its travels, gast had lost its h.

Think how smart this little scribe would look to the king and other powerful people if he started spelling gast with the ancient h of gheis. So, the little scribe changed our language for all time. He stuck an h into ghost.

How did the word ghost pick up the idea of something frightening? Old English and Old Gothic both had words which may have split off from gast; their word gaestan meant to be frightened.

Have fun with reading. Use my blog's search box - top left corner - put in silent gh and silent h and ce, ci, cy and working memory and high school reading, etc.

You may like to look at my books which teach a special comprehension method as well as all the tricky bits. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. Being a powerful reader is more important than ever.
Thank you,  Mary Maisner

Friday, February 15, 2013

silent gh knight, night, thought, caught


Cnihts in training keeping watch for trouble.
The English we speak today comes to us from the far corners of the earth. Many words come from ancient India and the ancient message writers who worked for kings. These men were called scribes.

Silent gh comes to us from the scribes. Scribes were trained to write and read at a time in history when almost no one could print or even read his own name.

Kings and wealthy people liked to have around them at least one person who could write words on paper. In those days, betrayal and treachery were constant. A spoken message could be changed. A written message stamped with the wax imprint of the King's seal was not so easy to change. 

Alfred the Great, born in the year 849, was the 1st king of England. Alfred insisted on having scribes write down his commands. Alfred thought being able to read and write were so valuable that he had someone teach him those skills. Alfred also demanded that leaders of his important cities be able to read and write. Knights who wanted to be chosen as leaders, or captains in Alfred's army took lessons, too.

William the Conqueror, born 1028 died 1087, was king of a northern region in France, called Normandy. William decided to take his knights across the narrow strip of ocean to invade England. By the year 1066, William had conquered the lower regions of England. William also demanded scribes.

The English people, now ruled by William the Conqueror of Normandy, spoke a language William did not understand. The English had a way of saying many words with a gruff, cough-like sound. To hear this sound still spoken today in English words, listen to a Scotsman say the word, Edinburgh.

That gruff, cough-like sound in words like cniht (knight) were a puzzle for the scribes of William the Conqueror. The scribes had to find a way to write down that cough-like sound.The Norman language had a letter which looked like a backward-facing 3.  To help themselves remember to make this cough - sound when reading messages to their king, the scribes wrote: cni 3 ht.  

Over many hundreds of years, that backward 3 slid, or morphed in shape, into our present-day letter g. Still today, we write the ancient scribe's backward 3 when we write: night, knight, might, fight, thought, caught, and many other words. Instead of trying to make that gruff coughing sound when we say those words, we leave gh as silent letters.


You may decide you would like one of my books. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. 

Also Instant Reading Help tion, tious, tient, ciate.  And, Instant Reading Help add ed, ing   or Instant Reading Help change y to i.  

All books are new and teach an easy comprehension method plus tons of other lessons. Being a skillful reader is more important than ever.  Have fun reading with your child. Thank you, Mary Maisner

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

knight, bachelor, infantry

Cnihts and knechts defended the king's
villages against gangs of robbers.
Often, they defended the villages
against other kings who wanted
to enlarge their kingdoms.
Cniht was the Old English word, used before the year 1000. C says the k sound and both c and n were spoken.

Knecht was the Old German word used during this same time of history. Both k and n were spoken.

As time and history moved along, many steps of cnihthood were created. Our word, infantry, comes from these years. An infant was a young man who could not afford a horse and therefore had to walk to the battle.

A full knight was one who had the wealth to buy a horse and all the armor needed for protection. These items were very costly. Armor and swords were also very, very heavy. And, the silver needed to be cleaned with sand to keep it shiny.

A cniht's leige, (say le j, long e) was the king or nobleman to whom loyalty was given by the cniht.
  
You might like to see my books which use very interesting lessons to help your child become a strong and powerful reader. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all of my books will pop up for you.  All books teach tricky phonics and a special comprehension method your child will love.  To see an amazing, full suit of armor, visit: http://museumnetworkuk.org/talking/imggallery/buckhurstarmour.html

Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

silent k history of knight, cniht

Young boys training for cnihthood
lived in homes that looked like this.
In the days before the year 1000, cniht referred to boys who were becoming old enough to help defend the village in a battle. C says the k sound in cniht.

In those long ago days, a kingdom was small, maybe the size of a county, today. A king could only claim the amount of land he could command and defend with his cnihts.

The boys practiced fighting with a stick, not a sword.

The French used the word bachelor, from the word which referred to a farmer's stick, the staff used to herd animals.

The word bachelor began being used by people when they spoke of the boys of this age group because the boys were using a farmer's staff to practice fighting.

The French kept the word bachelor for young boys getting ready to fight but used the Old German knecht, (say the k sound) for a full grown warrior. By 1066, the French Normans had conquered parts of England.

The French Norman scribes of that period put the letter g in the iht words of Old English. We still have that g today. Over the years, scribes traded the c of cniht to the Old German k of knecht.  
As time and history moved along, many steps of cnihthood were created. Many ways of proper behavior for cnihts came into being. Our word, infantry, comes from these years. An infant was a young man who could not afford a horse and therefore had to walk to the battle.

A full knight was one who had the wealth to buy a horse and all the armor needed for protection. These items were very, very costly. A cniht's leige, (say le j, long e) was the king or nobleman to whom loyalty was given by the cniht.
  
You might like to see my books which use very interesting lessons to help your child become a powerful reader. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.  
To see a photograph of an amazing full suit of armor, please visit the website below:
http://museumnetworkuk.org/talking/imggallery/buckhurstarmour.html
The painting above was done by Samuel Palmer (1805-1881). Thank you, Mary Maisner

Friday, February 8, 2013

silent k knight, know, knot


Carisbrook castle on the isle of Wright
Would you like to be transported back to the year 1000?
People in England started dropping the k sound of knight, know, and knot in the years after Shakespeare lived (1564-1616). However, both k and n are still spoken today in European languages.

Language can pick up a slang word that is used so often and by so many people, that it can begin to seem like a proper word. 

That may have been how letter k become silent in the letter team kn.

It probably took several hundred years for k to become silent and kn words to seem proper. Change was slow in a world without radio, tv, telephone, even without newspapers. People traveled by foot and horseback. It took a long time for an idea to move from one place to another.

Why did we keep letter k for spelling?  It is possible k was kept to make it easy to see the difference between:
knight / night        know / now        knot / not       knit / nit (a flea)       knee / nee

knave (a misbehaving boy) and nave (an area within a church)

Nee refers to the name a girl was given when she was born. Her name would change to her husband's last name when she married. Her name would be written this way: Ann Jones, nee Baker (meaning Baker was her name before marriage.)

Knight is an ancient word from Old English, spoken long before it was written. The spelling started as cniht, (c says the k sound). Cni may have come from kin, the word meaning one's family. We still use the ancient word kin today to speak of someone in our family.  

The above painting of the Carisbrooke Castle was done in 1828 by the famous Englishman, William Turner. Turner did not use e at the end of Carisbrooke.  To see a large photograph of an amazing suit of armor, please visit this website:
http://museumnetworkuk.org/talking/imggallery/buckhurstarmour.html   

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. 
Thank you, Mary Maisner

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

silent b lamb, lambaz

An ancient days, lambs were called lambaz.
What do you think of that?
 
Before the year 1000, people in England were using an Old Norse word for lambs: lambaz.

If you had been living in those days, you would have said both letter m and letter b of lambaz.


The word thumb, in those long ago days, was thuma from an ancient Indian word, tum. The word from India, tum, meant swollen. By the time tum traveled to the English world, it had become thuma, meaning thick finger.

Thuma did not get a letter b until the late 1200s.

Maybe b got added to thumb because there was a little metal finger cap, called a thimble.

Thimbles were the little finger caps people put on their longest middle fingers when they were sewing to help push the needle through thick materials like leather and wool. There were no sewing machines in those days. All sewing was done by hand.  Strangely, the little metal finger caps were not put on a person's thumb, so why was it called a thimble? 

Let's look at silent b words:
lamb               bomb     comb    limb       dumb     plumb   

door jamb       tomb      climb     crumb   numb      thumb

By the year 1300, many people has stopped saying the letter b at the end of some of these words. People in Germany and Holland stopped spelling these words with letter b.

Although many people in England stopped saying letter b at the end of these words, they still spelled the words with b. Maybe the English people kept letter b because we do say the b sound here:
crumb > crumble > crumbles > crumbled > crumbling
limb > limber

Our words are very, very, very old! Many of them were being spoken before the time of the gladiators of Rome, long before the time of knights and princesses.

You may like to look at the books I have to help your child become a strong and happy reader. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.

All books teach phonics, sight words, and comprehension. The books are filled with color pictures, stories, and skill pages to help your child become a powerful reader.

Thank you, Mary Maisner






Monday, February 4, 2013

silent b doubt quiz

Do you doubt that our elephant is having a good time? 
You need to take your mind far back in history to the time of knights on horseback to see how the letter b got into the word doubt

More than one thousand years before the word doubt was spoken, people used the word tweogan when they were unsure about something, like whether our elephant is having a good time on this bicycle. Being unsure, hesitating about what to do, was called being of two minds.


Is the answer yes or no? Should I wear a blue shirt or a red shirt? Do I know the right answer? Should I raise my hand?  All of these questions show that you are of two minds. 

In ancient times, when a person was unsure, of two minds about a matter, the person used the word tweogan or tweon.  Which of our modern words come from the ancient words tweogan and tweon?        tweet    or    two

The answer is two. Two comes from ancient tweon. Tweogan meant to be of two minds, to doubt. By the time of the knights, another word which meant being of two minds, being unsure, hesitating - had come into our language. This was the Latin word, dubitare: to have doubt.

The word doubt came into being in ancient India with the word dwou. Ancient traders and travelers carried the Indian word dwou to Rome where Latin was spoken and written.

Latin took dwou and made it dubitare, which meant to hesitate, to be unsure, to be of two minds.
Over the years, the French people took dubitare and made the word doter: to be unsure, to hesitate, to be of two minds.

In those long ago times, very few people could read or write. During the time of the knights, the kings, and very rich people, had secretaries to write their notes and letters. The old word for a secretary was scribe

During the years of the 1300s, scribes begin thinking doter should have the old Latin spelling with a letter b. Even though there was no b sound in doubt, scribes began spelling it with a b. Hundreds of years later, are we still spelling doubt with b?  yes  no

So, all these years, doubt has not been spoken with b, but it has been spelled with letter b. Look at these other words which come from that time and are cousins of the word doubt:

duo, double, dubious - all of these words share the meaning of two, being unsure, hesitating.

Can you choose the correct word?

1) The clerk was __________ that the little boy had enough money to buy the toy truck.
                          doubtful    doughnut

2) The clerk was __________ that the little boy had enough money to buy the toy truck.
                           dumb      dubious

3) Adam was _____________ that the huge elephant could stay on the little unicycle.
                       dull        dubious

4) Susie was _____________ that the huge elephant was really having fun on the unicycle.
                      doubtful     dubious

Answers:1) doubtful, 2) dubious, say do be us; 3) dubious, 4) both words mean unsure - so both words can be correct.

You might like to look at the list of lessons on the right side of this blog. 

You may also like to look at the books I have to help your child become a strong, skillful reader. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you to see. All books teach a powerful comprehension method to help your reader connect to meaning. Recent test scores show that students are not doing well on vocabulary tests; all of my books will help your child quickly see how to make a strong connection to vocabulary.
Have fun with words, Mary Maisner