Writers love words, and the English language is a rich challenge. Like the United States, the English language is a melting pot. In my undergraduate years at UConn, despite being a Business major (to please my father by pursuing a “technical” degree), I took many liberal arts courses, including one on Etymology, the origin of words.
English, the great melting pot
The roots of our native tongue are derived from many sources, including
—Latin (alibi, meaning elsewhere)
—Germanic (mother)
—Yiddish (schlep…one of my favorite words)
—French (seance….French for session)
—Old English, which has Germanic roots, of course (bread)
—Old Norse, short, punchy Viking-influenced words (egg)
—Ancient Greek (democracy)
just to name a very few examples.
In general, simple, practical, everyday words tend to come from Germanic roots, while more formal, flowery, or technical words come from French, Latin, or Greek. Go figure.
In addition, English deepens its layers by keeping multiple words for the same idea, such as ask (Old English), question (French), and interrogate (Latin), as well as lawyer (Norse) and attorney (French/Latin). Did you know that will comes from Germanic/Old English roots and testament from French ones? It makes me wonder who was in the room when it was decided to use both.
English was also influenced in a different way after 1066 (the Norman invasion of England). The French were nobility, and the English were working class, causing words about animals (such as pig) to come from the English, but words about the food (such as pork) to be French. To put it simply, the English were farmers who grew the food, and the French ate it.
One way to think about English’s evolution
The English language continues to evolve, incorporating other languages like Spanish (mosquito) and adding modern tweaks from hip-hop (Stan) and current-day inventions (google and meme). Sometimes it isn’t a new word, but a new definition for an existing word, that is evolves such as tweet, ghost, and lit.
I don’t pretend to be an expert in word origins. I’m just fascinated by it all. I’m also grateful to have English as my native tongue. I can’t imagine learning it from scratch as an adult. It’s hard enough to keep up with the cultural changes.
Let me know below how you keep up with the changing times, or if you have your own favorite word origin stories.
By the way, Merriam-Webster’s 2026 word of the year: Bed Rotting. Draw your own conclusions.
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Allison Keeton writes the Midcoast Maine Mystery series. Arctic Green, Book Two, is now available. She can be reached at http://www.akeetonbooks.com
Two days later, at nine on a gloomy, overcast Saturday morning with thundershowers in the forecast, I was at home trying to work on a short story sent to me by a new client when I was struck by a wave of nostalgia. For once, this was not prompted by a memory of growing up in Lenape Hollow, but rather by the realization that it was the third Saturday in April and for the second year in a row I was going to miss seeing the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race on TV.
I’m absolutely savoring the stories in 
I finished Henry Wise’s debut novel, 
A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE
I am so excited about Ryan Lowell, a writer is based in South Portland by way of Bucksport. His debut novel FREIGHT coming out August 11. The blurb reads, “As a lone semi-truck makes its snowy way to the US-Canadian border, a series of vivid characters are inexorably drawn into a desperate, comedic, and murderous scheme to steal its precious cargo.” You can preorder yours 
I had a blast at the Seacoast Noir at the Bar hosted at the Kittery Dance Hall hosted by Zakariah Johnson. The highlight was when Carolyn Wilkins shared a song about murder that accompanied her historical mystery, MURDER AT THE WHAM BAM CLUB. If you haven’t been to events at the Kittery Dance Hall, I’d really encourage you to check the place out. I heard there is a delightful little bar nearby that serves up literary themed beverages. The event was a hit and Zakariah’s looking to plan another one in October.
The amazing Katie York hosted a Noir at the Bar at Kanù in Old Town to a standing room crowd. Local writers like Katie, Cory Magee, and Anne Britting Olson were there along with EK Sathue, Matt Cost, Zakariah Johnson, and yours truly. All the readers were amazing but Katie’s voice – her combination of dark humor and unexpected content – is always a treat. And the way she reads in front of a crowd. Take note of her name.
Sanford Emerson, husband of Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson has had a new mystery novel published in e-book and paperback formats. Here’s the cover copy:
She moved to Chicago and (in three years) worked her way up to the Main Stage of Second City – one of the premiere comedy sketch venues in USA.
Now, Lil’s back living in LA, she performed at UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade). UCB is ALL improv (not written sketches that you memorize and then might jump off from), so it’s about knowing the technique of how to get a beginning, middle and end and making a cohesive piece of comedy that will hold together just using your chops and thinking on your feet.
I’ve met a lot of her ‘comedy’ friends and, off-stage, they are a very serious bunch. They work their asses off and commit to an insane writing schedule. They’re writing/observing/working on ideas all the time, ‘cause comedy and sketches can be ephemeral – if they are topical, they may only live in one performance, if they are more based on ebbs and flows and oddities of humankind, they can last longer and be tweaked and repeated. But you always want to give the audience “the new” –
This April trip was planned so we (hubby and I) could see the next installment of this play – it was wild fun with live “foley” (sound effects), a theatre of 200 which was sold-out (which is good because she wrote it with another person and they produced it too and thus get a cut of the house – a mini-mini-mini-ka-ching).
Brenda Buchanan sets her novels and short stories in Maine. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was included in the anthology Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories 2021 and received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. A short story called “Cape Jewell,” was published in Snakeberry: Best New England Crime Stories 2025, and another short story “Crime of Devotion” will be published next month in Murder Most Senior, an anthology presented by Jacqueline Winspear in association with the Malice Domestic conference.
