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Episode 52: Bloody Axes and a Battle Royal

The History of English Podcast

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Common English Norse Pairs

The old english word blossom and the norse word bloom are cognate. Smirk is actually a germanic borrowing, which first appears in writing around the year 13 hundred. Basque has that norse k sound at the end, and it's the borrowed viking word. And if we think about smile and smirk, they're very similar but smirk has more of a negative sense.

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