Modern English is the result of a grand linguistic experiment in creative packaging, in that the roots of its grammar are characteristically Germanic, but its vocabulary is dominated by the classical heritage of Greece and Rome. It’s been a long time since English-speaking children learned Greek and Latin in school, but the effects of traditional “Western” classical education are still all around us. Greek and Latin have shaped about half the words English speakers use today, including almost all of our technical and scientific terminology. This Word Stories instalment looks at what can happen when this profusion of Greek and Latin roots gets tangled up in English, for example in the popular temptation to use Latin endings for words that look Latin, like octopus.

In the modern world, astrology is often treated as a hobby, hovering somewhere between self-help and light entertainment. As the English language shows, though, the possibility that heavenly bodies might shape earthly life was a deadly serious concern for our ancestors.

Autological words are words that describe themselves—as opposed to all the heterological words that don’t. The adjective pentasyllabic is autological, for example, since it has five syllables. Monosyllabic, on the other hand, is heterological, since it has far more than one.

When people decide to take a little rest for the sake of their health, they often say they’re looking for some “peace and quiet.” The association of noise with unrest can be found throughout the English language. This Word Stories instalment explores the longstanding linguistic contradistinction between peaceful quiet and unsettling noise.