How fast is the English language expanding?
Recent research suggests that the English language has doubled in size over the last century.
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What is the shortest complete sentence in English?
There are two main candidates for the shortest sentence in the English language. The first is the single word exclamation: Go! The challenger is I am. My vote is for Go! . This has an active verb, an implied subject and a clear meaning. I am , as a sentence, only has meaning when used as an answer to a question: Who is going to the Moon this morning? I am .
Who is Shashibiya?
The name Shakespeare (transcribed Shashibiya) first appeared in a Chinese language publication in a translation of Milner’s The History of England in 1857. But it was the publication of Lin Shu’s Tales from Shakespeare in 1904 that first brought the Bard to a wider Chinese audience. Lin Shu remarketed Shashibiya for a Chinese readership. He promoted the plays as traditional ‘stories of gods and spirits’. One of these tales was used for the first professional production of Shakespeare in China: a staging of The Merchant of Venice in 1913. Read more : Shakespeare in China (3 minute free read on Medium)
Why do we say 'Good' Friday?
It may seem odd that Christians call their day of greatest sorrow Good Friday . The confusion arises from how we perceive the word 'Good'. Here it is used in the archaic sense of 'holy' or momentous. Good Friday, called Feria VI in Parasceve in the Roman Missal , he hagia kai megale paraskeue (the Holy and Great Friday) in the Greek Liturgy , Holy Friday in Romance Languages, Charfreitag (Sorrowful Friday) in German , is the English designation of Friday in Holy Week source In other words, Good marks the uniqueness of the Passion . It affirms the centrality of the crucifixion and resurrection to the Christian faith. Short essay : Where does the word Easter come from? Passover? Good Friday?
Where does the word Easter come from?
The word Easter is not in the New Testament. Nor does it feature in most translations of the Bible into vernacular languages. Isn't Easter linked to Passover? There is no direct linguistic link in English between the words Easter and Passover . This contrasts with the convention in Romance languages. Pâques, in French, covers both Easter and Passover . In Spanish, Semana Santa (Holy Week) is the most common phrase used to describe the festival. So where does the word Easter come from? Scholars agree that Easter has pre-Christian roots. Beyond that there is little consensus. According to the great Anglo-Saxon scholar the Venerable Bede , the Old English word eastre came from Eostre, "a goddess associated with spring." April was called Eosturmonath ("Easter-month") because in pagan times the month was dedicated to Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary suggests a link to the Germanic goddess
Why 'Maundy' Thursday?
The first citation of maunde to describe the Thursday before Easter in middle English comes in the mid-15C. It described not only The Last Supper in general but also the ceremony of the washing of the feet of the poor or downtrodden. The immediate origin was Old French mandé. This in turn derived from the Latin mandatum or "commandment" (see mandate (n.)). For Christians the crucial reference is to the opening words of the Latin church service for this day, Mandatum novum do vobis "A new commandment I give unto you" (John xiii:34). This new commandment is to love one another. The supreme test of this commandment will, of course, be the events of the following day: Good Friday . Short essay : Where does the word Easter come from? Passover? Good Friday?