I am sorry but i do not plan to tangle with modern linguistics nor deal with place names.
When I read English at Oxford, many moons ago, even the literature course required 2 out of the 9 final exam papers to be language based. There was one on the history of the language and it is that old-fashioned philological approach that I will pursue here.
My concentration will be on the meanings, derivations and reasons for change in the history of words and how their denotations have altered over the centuries. My underlying belief is that language is influenced by two main factors:
1) what one might call the spirit of the language which seems to embrace some trends and reject others. For example English is particualarly rich in synonyms which gradually become differentiated by register or usage
2) human psychology which unconsciously affects the meaning of words. Terms of time weaken because we all exaggerate how quickly we will achieve some end. Presently used to signify that the action would be done at the present moment but now means in a while.
I will avoid the use of endless quotation marks by employing the cunning colour button or simply running the term mentioned into the sentence.
T. S. Eliot wrote that words "decay with imprecision". The whole quotation from Burnt Norton conveys some of the ways in which words are slippery; I hope to uncover many more.
