English Synonyms I . The gradual incorporation 1. beforel066: words from Latin, Greek, Celtic and Scandinavian 2. after 1066: wo

English Synonyms
   In today’s lecture, we’ll deal with the incorporation and the variations of English synonyms. English has the largest vocabulary and the most synonyms of any language in the world. This richness is due to the fact that the English language has grown over centuries by constantly incorporating words from other languages.
   Even before the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary included words borrowed from Latin, Greek, Celtic and Scandinavian. (1) After the Norman Conquest, the English vocabulary was doubled by the addition of French words, especially those words reflecting a higher stand, and a more complex social life. While much of the new French vocabulary described new ideas and activities, (2) much of it duplicated the pre-existing Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, thus giving the writer or speaker a choice of synonyms: cure or heal, labour or work, burglary or stealing.
    (3) With the enormous expansion of classical learning in the Renaissance, there was a great influx of words from Latin and Greek origin into the English language. Also, the larger world discovered through travel and exploration was a great stimulus to culture and language.
    (4) In modern times, as some English-speaking people traded and traveled around the world, their adventures also expanded the vocabulary. Words were borrowed directly from Dutch, Spanish, American Indian, Eastern Indian, Italian, Australian, Mexican, Japanese, Malay and many others.
   Furthermore, the United States, as a separate nation with its own life and character and institutions, has added vastly to the English vocabulary. (5) With the rise of the United States to a position of world influence in politics, science, industry, trade and popular arts, American words and phrases have gained recognition and prestige everywhere. Moreover, American terminology for many things exists side by side with an English terminology, thus placing another whole group of synonyms at our service.
   So we can see that synonyms in English are of many kinds. (6) Some groups of synonyms are just words of different origins but refer to the same thing. (7) Some groups, like plain, prairie, tundra, refer to geographical variants of the same kind of thing. (8) Other groups of synonyms, like teach, educate, instruct, school, tutor, differ from one another principally in degrees of abstraction: teach is certainly the most general word of this group, while the others are more specialized in application.
    (9) Some differences in locution reveal differences in the degree of formality of the occasions described. (10) Sometimes different locutions reveal differences not in the situations described but in the formality of discourse about them. For instance, "he went to bed" as compared to "he hit the sack". "Hit the sack" is a more informal phrase which many young people are using when they go home tired after finishing a whole day’s work.
   In a word, nothing is so important to clear and accurate expression as the ability to distinguish between words of similar, but not identical meaning. The study of synonyms will help us to say what we really want to say. That’s all for today’s lecture. Thank you.