The Great Christmas Debate

My arrows meant that English borrowed from French early on, starting in the 12 century and on for quite some time, BEFORE the flow of words started to reverse, with French borrowing more heavily from English than vice-versa around the end of the 19th century until now.

[Re: Olivier5 (Post 5519586)
I routinely excuse your poor English, if i can understand what you meant to say, you snotty son of a bitch. You babble about half of our common nouns being of French origin, but that means nothing. Asteroid is a common noun , eosinophils is a common noun , telepathy is a common noun --but that doesn't mean that they are commonly used in conversation in English.

Yes, it appears that you just like to argue.

Yes, it appears that you just like to argue.

The Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxon and Jutes) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain (what is known as the Continental or Zero Period): anchor, butter, camp, cheese, chest, cook, copper, devil, dish, fork, gem, inch, kitchen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, pillow, pound (unit of weight), punt (boat), sack, street, wall, wine. Cognates of virtually all of these English words exist in the other Germanic languages.

Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th century and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms which entered the English language: abbot, altar, apostle, candle, clerk, mass, minister, monk, nun, pope, priest, school, shrive. Some of these words are ultimately of Greek origin, as much of the technical language of Christianity developed from the Greek of the New Testament and the works of those Fathers of the Church who wrote in Greek.

I highlighted Abbot because Ollie was trying to claim credit for Abbe and Abbey which is clearly untrue.

The basic sources of this work are Weekley's "An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English," Klein's "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," "Oxford English Dictionary" (second edition), "Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology," Holthausen's "Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache," and Kipfer and Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang." A full list of print sources used in this compilation can be found here.

abbot (n.)
Old English abbod "abbot," from Latin abbatem (nominative abbas), from Greek abbas, from Aramaic abba, title of honor, literally "the father, my father," emphatic state of abh "father." The Latin fem. abbatissa is root of abbess.

abbey (n.)
mid-13c., "convent headed by an abbot or abbess," from Anglo-French abbeie, Old French abaïe, from Late Latin abbatia, from abbas (genitive abbatis); see abbot.

abbe (n.)
1520s, title given in France to "every one who wears an ecclesiastical dress," especially one having no assigned ecclesiastical duty, from French abbé, from Late Latin abbatem, accusative of abbas (see abbot).

abbess (n.)
c.1300, abbese, from Old French abbesse, from Late Latin abbatissa, fem. of abbas (see abbot). Replaced earlier abbotess.