Noun-Spotting

Tags

noun

This could be titled: “The Big Ask”! Shock, horror and repugnance- a nomilization! Surely wrong! Read below about conversions and nomilization and reactions to this. Illustration by Harry Furniss for Dicken’s Oliver.

“We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”~Stephen Fry

I’ve struggled teaching grammar- so many texts with mindless exercises that don’t seem to help student understanding. Students in such exercises are often marked right or wrong and in the end that’s all the students know- they were right here or wrong there but with no further clue as to why. In order to discuss writing, to analyze texts we need specific terminology. However, rather than just handling grammar as a labelling exercise, I wanted students, and myself, to have a deeper understanding about word classes …. and to be able to justify these.

I began, for want of a better place, with nouns.

When discussing nouns, Ritchie (English for the Natives) observes ‘when traditionalist grammarians, who like all traditionalists, prefer their reality simple, their categories fixed and their heirachies solid, have a real problem… grammatical categories just don’t form neat groups with clear boundaries. Word classes aren’t discrete but ‘fuzzy’. There isn’t a list of defining membership rules for all parts of speech, rather they are organized by family resemblances, by prototypes which form a core element of a category, with other items assimilated to the same category by varying degrees.’

We experienced this degree of ‘fuzziness’ in our noun-spotting. Yet paradoxically, this ‘fuzziness’ has deepened our understanding of nouns.We have had rich conversations, asked many more questions than found answers, and sparked a flutter or inquiries.We have gone beyond the rote categorization of ‘person, place or thing’ and in doing so struggled with the concept and functions of nouns.

What makes a noun a noun?

In response to this question, the usual statements are uttered that a noun is a ‘person, place or thing’. And this has always been my difficulty with grammar-labelling as it often limits and doesn’t really address ‘noun-ness’. I asked students to identify nouns in a piece of text from our graphic novel The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds. We examined the text carefully. Are there common features about the position of the noun in relation to other words? Are there morphological features in common? What patterns can we notice?

Nouns, along with verbs, adjectives and adverbs are regarded as ‘lexical words’ the main meaning carriers, that belong to an ‘open word class’ . Why open? New entries to the language are constantly added to these word classes. In contrast the ‘closed classes’ are pronouns, determiners, prepositions and conjunctions as they are rarely added to.These words are known as the ‘function words’ and as such they have a structuring role in a sentence. When we ‘borrow’ words ( although appropriate may be a more accurate account) many are nouns. Hitchings writes that three quarters of the words absorbed into English in the period between 1250 and 1450 were nouns. Many of these of course referred to new discoveries- material things, experiences and attitudes. Nouns are always absorbed more frequently, whereas as the adoption of function words into the language is far more rare and indicates a deep connection with the original culture, an engagement with concepts rather than stuff. I recently learned of this through Gina Cooke’s brilliant course Old English for Orthographers where we saw that the adoption of ‘they’, ‘them’ , and ‘their’ from Old Norse revealed the extent to which the Vikings had integrated with the local population.

Nouns are a vast collection. We have discovered that nouns are the most heavily populated of the word classes, outnumbering verbs roughly three to one (Jackson, Ritchie).

Below, in bold, after much discussion, are the nouns we identified.

‘Lord Poseidon whose dominion embraces the whole earth, hear our prayer: glory to Nestor and all the line of Neleus, good fortune to every man of Pylos in exchange for their sacrifice, and swift success to Telemachus and myself in our mission’.

‘His strength and bulk terrified us, so that we cringed in the shadows as one-by-one he milked his fat ewes, curdling some of the milk for cheese and leaving two great pails to drink from.’

Identifying the nouns and how we decide on their ‘noun-ness’ has led us into interesting waters.

A record of our discussion, connections and questions. Thinking about language is messy; it’s more than an easy categorization.

Here’s what we have noticed:

Names and places: Nouns can be names of people : Lord Poseidon. Some of us knew the term ‘proper nouns'( we did not go into the distinction between the term proper nouns and proper names,  see here if interested.) Nouns as proper nouns also can be places, days and months. They are specific and refer to a particular place out of many, a specific day out of all the days, a specific month out of all the months and as such, they are marked by an initial capital letter. Yet this is not to us clear cut and we wondered about usage such as: ‘The December sun beat down on us’ . Is ‘December’ still a noun or is it now modifying sun and in that case an adjective? Or is it to be considered as one unit- December sun, a compound and in this sentence then a noun?

Positional clues:

Adjectives: The position in the sentence can give clues as to the function of a word. We saw that if there’s an adjective, it’s often, but not always, placed before the noun  ‘the whole earth’, ‘good fortune’.

Determiners: Nouns often, not always, have determiners before them : determiner + noun or determiner + adjective + noun. Determiners can be the definite article ‘the’ and the indefinite article ‘a’, ‘an’: ‘the line’, ‘the whole earth’. The possessive pronoun/determiner their occurs before a noun: so ‘their sacrifice’.

Subjects and objects: Word order in English is important. Nouns plus words associated with them can be the subjects in sentences: Lord Poseidon,…. hear our prayer. Nouns can also be objects in a sentence: our mission, our prayer. Often in English, although not always, nouns and their phrases occur as subject, verb, object.

Prepositions: Nouns can occur after prepositions:’to Nestor’, ‘of Pylos’

Morphological clues:

Plural suffixes: Nouns can be plural- which is indicated often, not always, by the inflectional suffix <-s> and <-es>. We saw that if we substituted the plural form for the singular and it made sense, most likely it was a noun so < prayer+s>. ‘Sacrifice’ we knew could like many nouns, be used verbally. However, with the adding of their before sacrifice and testing with the plural suffix <-s> helped us determine that sacrifice here in this text, was functioning as a noun.

Base changes in the plural: However, we also saw that it wasn’t just the suffix <-s> or <-es> that makes a noun a plural, we noticed sometimes the base of the word changes as in ‘man’ ~’men’. We are wondering about this and gathering more examples. Is this vowel change to the base element when creating the plural,  only in words of old English? ‘Foot~feet’, ‘tooth~teeth’. And what about ‘leaf’~ leaves, wife~wives, dwarf~ dwarves but the oaf but not ~*oaves!  More evidence needed, right now we’ll gather data, then investigate! (See Real Spelling, Kit 1B The Plural Suffix <-(e)s> the Basic Pattern)

Cases: English nouns in the present day have lost many of its cases but can mark the genitive case through <‘s> in the singular and usually <s’>in the plural: ‘Poseidon’s wrath’, ‘the suitors’ greed’.

The derivational suffixes: The suffix <-ion> is a huge clue as to ‘noun-ness’ : dominion, mission. But we also noted words like function, station which can be used verbally: I function well as a team member or I station myself by the door to welcome guests.

The agent suffixes: The  derivational suffix <-er> can  indicate that a word is a noun. It can convert a verb to noun so  the verb pray becomes a noun <pray+er> the words that pray, request or beseech. <-er> can be an agent suffix, agents being people or objects that do something. We discussed other agent suffixes such as <-ian>, <-ist>, <-or>. We’ve now started a list of words with these agent suffixes.

Many nouns can swap word classes for example words that are adjectival can often be used nominally: ‘the swift and the nimble will be rewarded’, ‘the long and the short and the tall‘, ‘the good, the bad and the ugly.’ We discussed how verbs can be converted to nouns by adding the suffix<-ing> creating a gerund: Running is a favorite sport in our class. 

We also talked about further dividing nouns into abstract and concrete, count and uncountable and noting interesting features about them. Do abstract nouns take plural suffixes? We tested this and with these words thought ‘no’, *happiness+es, *laughter+s, *luck+s *anger+s… but then joy+s is possible: ‘The joys of teaching are numerous’, Freedom+s is possible: ‘the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms’ (UN Preamble Declaration of Human Rights). We wondered about <*justice+s> – it does not seem possible to add the plural suffix here unless you are referring to people who are justices yet its opposite <in+justice+s> is possible.

Listen to summaries of our noun- spotting below:

Questions for further inquiry

• Is <-ous> always an adjectival suffix ?
• What are other ways of forming the plural suffix? We know child~ children so <child+ren>? <childr+en>? Read here about the double suffix indicating the plural! What about brethren? The singular is not *brether but we wondered about brother and lo and behold thanks to ever reliable Online Etymology Dictionary, we found our answer!
• What other words have <-en> as a plural suffix?
• When it looks like a plural, is it? Why are some nouns marked with an <-s> even when we are talking about a singular item – trousers, pants, undies and boxers. We don’t say trouser, or pant or undie in reference to one of the aforementioned items. We use these words for both the plural and singular. We made a list of such examples adding:  scissors and binoculars. One student mentioned that we say ‘a pair of trousers‘, or ‘a pair of scissors’.  Is it it, we wondered, because there are two parts to the unit that we say scissors even when speaking of just the one object? Is this the reason for pants and trousers, boxers, knickers and undies? All have two leg holes. However, why not this logic with other garments? We have both singular shirt and plural<shirt+s>, singular jumper and sweater and their plural counterparts <jumper+s> and <sweater+s>, a singular <cardigan> and the plural <cardigan+s>. All these items have two holes, sleeves! Or is the <s>  part of the base element rather than the plural suffix<-s>? Usually we avoid this confusion by the final non-syllabic <e> so not *hous but house, horse not *hors. We are intrigued and looking for more examples.
• Why no gender? We discussed that in English, nouns, unlike many other languages are not categorized by gender. Some German, French, Korean, Chinese and Italian students compared their languages with that of English. English, as Ritchie reminds us, ‘binned the masculine, feminine and neuter gender groupings of its Anglo-Saxon days’ and lost almost all the different  forms its nouns had.
• Is <th> in the final position of a base element a clue that a word is a  noun? Are words with a <-th> suffix nouns? Are they all from Old English? One student asked this after noticing <strength> in the passage above. She wondered about its connection to <strong> She has has become intrigued by this and is rapidly gathering data. Stay tuned!
• What’s wrong with conversion? Why do some people get so irritated by using verbs as nouns. I  thought I sided with descriptivists, linguists who describe the language, rather than prescriptivists, those who decry various usages attaching ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ to various utterances. However, a secret hate has been the nominalizing of ask. I had assumed this use to be a recent development, perhaps more frequent over the last 8 years. I noticed its popularity with sports commentators. Often I’ve heard that “it was big ask” to convert a particular try in the noble game of rugby and winced. Imagine my surprise when I checked the O.E.D. and discover it has been attested as a noun from 1000 CE!!! : Laws of Athelstan: Hæfdon ealle ða ǽscean, again in 1230 an example: ‘He failed of his as‘, again in 1781:  ‘I am not so unreasonable as to desire you to..answer all my asks’(Twining)! I also discovered a ‘Draft Editions Entry, 2005′ in the OED stating:colloq. (orig. Austral.) (chiefly Sport). ‘With modifying word or phrase, as a big (also huge, etc.) ask : something which is a lot to ask of someone; something difficult to achieve or surmount’.

Noun-spotting, not such a big ask! We’re now seeing them everywhere and classifying them according to our observations. And what of the word noun itself? A noun of course, attested in English in the 14th century from Anglo-French, from the Latin root nomen: name! Old English also used name to mean noun. (Online Etymology Dictionary). We are actually looking forward to exploring verbs! Oh the clamour for the glamour of grammar!

Read more about conversions and public reactions here:

Those Irritating Verbs as Nouns

No Nouning

The Dark Side of Verbs as Nouns:

OnLine Dictionaries: A Big Ask

Pay-For 

The Moving Dead, Hybrids and Mongrels

Tags

chimera, echidna, hybrid, kinemortophobia, mongrel, typhon

by William , Cerberus guarding Tartarus, by William Blake 1824-7. An illustration for Dante’s Divine Comedy

We continue to refine our knowledge of base elements that form compound words connected to <phobe+ia>. Listen to one student below explain his discoveries about kinemortophobia. Through his work we also discovered more about hybrid words and hybrid creatures in mythology.

Assessment:

Discussions such as this are a valuable form of assessment. Here’s what I noticed that this student is beginning to understand :

•  the term compound. He needs to become more familiar with the term, but recognizes compounds are composed of more than one base element, in the case of <kinemortophobia> there are three and these bases are be bound.
•  that the Online Etymology Dictionary will provide him with the roots of bases of compounds even when the entire word is not given.
• the morphemic structure of a word. His hands indicating stop show the boundaries of each morpheme and help to consolidate this awareness of morphemic boundaries and changes that can happen there.
•  that the connecting vowel letter <o> is a separate morpheme.
• that the infinitive suffix is removed from a root to form a base element in English- he noticed this in the Greek root κινεῖν kinein to move, set in motion.
• that that by typing in the root in Online Etymology Dictionary more words sharing that root will appear: kinein.
• how to use the Online Etymology Dictionary by entering part of the word . He was able to discuss his process and make sense of the entry.
• to apply his knowledge of other languages to help him.
•  that a final non-syllabic <e> is removed but not certain why- just a procedure. His removal of the <e>in <phobe+ia> indicates he needs understanding of this process rather than “that’s just what you do!” He reverted swiftly to dragging in ‘sound’ as a hypothesis for the removal- then realized that did not make a lot of sense!!
•  that bases and elements need to be spelled aloud- he self corrected to do this.
• one of the functions of synonyms- can be to be express an idea more directly, informally or be blunter than a formal more polite, perhaps technical version- mongrel versus hybrid. He appeared to understand the connotations of implicit in ‘mongrel’.

Hybrid

Hybrid, as a linguistic term refers to words with elements of different etymological origins. Hybrid entered English in 1600s via Latin although maybe Greek in origins and linked to hubris. Initially it referred to the young of a domesticated sow and wild boar, thus mixed parentage, or ‘mongrel’.  As such its usage was rare until the 1850s. It’s  link to hubris was surprising with its initial meaning of presumption towards the gods later expanding to include violence and insolence. Perhaps the implication is that mixed parentage results in impurity and as such is a violence to the gods.

‘Mongrel’, one of the words used to describe hybrid, is often used with negative connotations. The Online Etymology Dictionary notes that mongrel has been attested since the end 15th century and referred to a ‘mixed breed dog’. The roots of this word are Old English gemong which has led to ‘among’, and from its older Proto-Germanic root  to mingle. The Online Etymology Dictionary notes the pejorative connotations suggested in the suffix<-rel>. Earlier than its canine connections, in the 1540s, was its derogatory link to racial mixes :’By the waye of reuilyng or despyte, laiynge to the charge of the same Antisthenes that he was a moungreell, and had to his father a citezen of Athenes, but to his mother a woman of a barbarous or saluage countree’, so wrote N. Udall in his translation of Erasmus’s Apothegenes (O.E.D.)

We have spotted many hybrids scattered throughout the Greek myths and these hybrids are truly monstrous.

Hybrid Creatures:

Echidna: Εχιδνα

Echidna is a Latinate transcription of Greek Εχιδνα. Note the Latin use of <ch> to represent the Greek <χ> ‘khi’. Echidna is a hybrid –  a mixture of a beautiful woman and a writhing snake. Hesoid in his Theogeny states that she was ”the divine and haughty Ekhidna, and half of her is a Nymphe with a fair face and eyes glancing, but the other half is a monstrous serpent (ophis), terrible, enormous and squirming and voracious, there in earth’s secret places. For there she has her cave on the underside of a hollow rock, far from the immortal gods, and far from all mortals. There the gods ordained her a fabulous home to live in which she keeps underground among the Arimoi, grisly Ekhidna, a Nymphe who never dies, and all her days she is ageless.”

According to Theoi Greek Mythology, Echidna ‘represented or presided over the corruptions of the earth : rot, slime, fetid waters, illness and disease’. She and her fearsome mate Typhon were the parents of other monsters:  the Chimaera, the many-headed dog Orthus, Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon who guarded the apples of the Hesperides, the Colchian dragon, of the Sphinx, Cerberus, Scylla, Gorgon, the Lernaean Hydra, and the eagle which consumed the liver of Prometheus, and the Nemean lion.

The linking of the monstrous Echidna to the marsupial echidna was initially puzzling. Online Etymology Dictionary explains the naming by Cuvier suggesting that it may be in connection to its long snake- like tongue. Other claims suggest that naturalists were puzzled as to whether it was mammal or amphibian.

The snake like tongue in this particular image is obvious! Leclerc (Comte de Buffon) naturalist

Typhoeus , Typhon:Τυφωευς Τυφων

The monstrous Typhon- note his fingers! Imago Typhonis – Oedipvs Aegyptiacvs, A Kircher, 1652

Typhoeus/Typhon above, hybrid also and consort of Echidna. He too appeared ‘man-shaped to the thighs’ then instead of legs were two coiled vipers. Instead of fingers, he had fifty serpent heads per hand. He belched red hot rocks at the sky and breathed fiery storms from his mouth. His name has been linked with typhoon a word attested since the 1550s in English for violent winds and tornadoes. Hesiod differentiates Typhaon and Typhoeus as two distinct beings. Typhaon is a son of Typhoeus (Theog. 869), and a fearful hurricane, who by Echidna became the father of the dog Orthus, Cerberus, the Lernaean hydra, Chimaera, and the Sphynx. Other writers conflate the two. Winds, fire belching and volcanoes are linked with this giant.

Chimera :χίμαιρα: chimaira

The Chimera, attributed to Jacopo Ligozzi, Italian 1547–1627. pen and brown ink and brush and brown ink over black chalk, gold paint and white body colour, 32.3 x 42.4 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (D01657), Spanish Royal Collection.

Chimera as a word is attested in English since early 14th century. It entered the lexicon via Old French and Latin from Greek χίμαιρα:chimaira. This three headed beast Warner suggests in No Go the Bogeyman,verges on the comic. Three heads appear on her body but not in the usual above the neck position as is typical of heads. The chimera’s heads have sprouted along her body: a goats head from her dorsal ridge, and her tail spouts fire, like an amphisbaenic gargoyle doodled in the margins of a medieval manuscript: in the usual place of a head, she roars through lion’s jaws'(Warner, 242).

The chimera is a strange blending of parts. Warner in her reflections of its fear inducing qualities notes that the word chimera ‘ has come to mean, since the Renaissance, illusion itself, an impossible and delusory figment of the imagination’. Warner states that the Chimera ‘is the ultimate monster of monsters, who is both frighteningly there and yet a spectre, who shows something real that at the same time exists only in the mind.’ Nathan Bailey’s ‘Dictionarium Britannicum: or a more compleat universal etymological English Dictionary‘ defines chimera as both ‘monster’ and mere whimsy, castle in the air, an idle fancy’

‘Chimera ‘from Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary

The chimera is killed by the hero Bellerophon mounted on Pegasus which had sprung from the blood of yet another hybrid monster Medusa, too killed by another sword wielding hero Perseus.

We continue to wonder about the relationship between heroes and these hybrid monsters- without the defeat of these monsters can the hero really be regarded as such? We have noticed so many are female.

An Aside:Bailey’s Dictionary

Nathan Bailey, early word nerd, teacher of Hebrew, Latin and Greek at a boarding school in Stepney, philologist and one of a line of lexicographers, compiled’ The Universal Etymological English Dictionary‘ and published this first in 1721. An indication of its popularity is that it reached its twentieth edition  in 1763 and its 27th edition in 1794. A folio edition was published in 1730: Dictionarium Britannicum. The esteemed lexicographer Samuel Johnson also owned a copy that he annotated with his own thoughts.

The 1730 title page of the  Dictioanarium Britannicum, created by Nathan Bailey. It aimed at edification not only ‘ for the Information of  the Ignorant, but the Entertainment of of the Curious: and also the Benefit of Artificers, Tradesmen, Young Students and Foreigners.’ For the dictionary curious, read more here at the British Library: Dictionaries and Meanings

Medusa:Μέδουσα

Caravaggio’s Medusa showing her at the moment of her beheading by Perseus. Her head became part of Athena’s aegis.

Medousa (Medusa)  one of three gorgons and the only mortal gorgon, killed by Perseus, in Greek mythology. Medusa’s head was fixed on the aegis or shield of Athene. According to the O.E.D. ‘the Greek form Μέδουσα is identical with the present participle feminine of μέδειν to protect, rule.‘  Medusa in some versions was once a beautiful woman and metamorphosed by Athena for her presumption for lying with Poseidon in her shrine. Medusa’s glance in her new form continued to captivate but ironically now petrifying the unwary gazer, turning him to stone. Medusa’s hair became venomous snakes. Punishment in becoming hybrid for hubris.

Zombie

The OED dates the word zombie as entering English in 1819, earlier than the Online Dictionary’s date of 1876. Both sources link to roots in West Africa. The Online Etymology Dictionary notes its original meaning as a snake god with a later shift to become the reanimated dead in voodoo. There are suggestions that this word could have originated from Louisiana creole meaning phantom or ghost. The Louisiana claim to this word links to the Spanish etymon sombra meaning shade. In the 1930’s it  also developed a facetious meaning of someone who was dim- as in dead- head. So shady, ghostly,dim and snaky are these dead who walk.

Marina Warner reminds us that the idea of zombie was an ‘early 19th-century import from West Africa via the Caribbean, through the diaspora brought about by the traffic in human beings’. Perhaps its this physical and spiritual sense of dislocation and alienation that is lurking behind zombie. Warner again writes:’Zombies used to be primarily victims of voodoo masters. Today, it’s become an existential term, about mental and physical enslavement, a deathly modern variation on the age-old theme of metamorphosis. ‘ Read Warner’s article The Devil Inside  to explore contemporary culture and even the connection between Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner and West Indian spirit cults.

I Walked with a Zombie a 1943 horror film heavily borrowing on the narrative structure of Jane Eyre.

Zombies, Echidna, Typhon, Medusa and chimera , all hybrid monsters perhaps all warnings. Wait for our for our analysis of monster next post! We continue our quest and etymological inquiry into more hybrids in Greek mythology.

Good Grief, It’s Greek!

Tags

Greek roots

 

A frantic week with a light hearted meeting of city states out on the field in an Olympian contest! While it may have been light hearted competition on the field, in the classroom the wrestling was in earnest as students tackled roots written in Greek and used this knowledge of the root to confirm hypotheses as to the morphemes.

 How do you determine the base element?

Students examined a group of words they were told are related. They were informed that each group is a family so there are members that share a base element. So far so good, somewhat familiar at this stage of the year. However, families share the same root but may have different bases! New information!!  Students quickly spotted the fact that many of the words in their ‘family’ are compounds so there are two or more bases. The challenge then became one of analyzing each word into its morphemes as a word sum and to identify the related bases .

Dear reader, can you do this?

Base elements were discussed, hypotheses  formed and revised  and finally the bases in common were agreed upon based on the evidence students had before them. At this stage we did not use dictionaries or go online, just stuck with what was already there.

The next stage was to identify the ‘family root’. Here’s what they were given. I hear your gasps- good grief it’s Greek!!

How did these neophyte word nerds handle this task? Well, with the help of a copy of the Greek alphabet, upper and lower cases and a sheet on transcribing the Greek alphabet to the more familiar Roman alphabet courtesy of Real Spelling (Toolkit Real Spelling 3B and 4C). Too difficult? Absolutely not- mostly there was laughing and some mutterings that it was hard. However, no-one one wanted to give up: the short videos below bear witness to the students persistence, determination, enjoyment and learning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From here it was using our knowledge of the root to confirm our hypotheses of morphemes.

 

 

 

 

 Questions for further investigation

• Is there a final non syllabic <e> in the base element connected with democracy: <dem> or <deme>?
• Is <en-> a prefix in energy? What is the base element here? What are related words?

What we discovered about words:

• Words are related through common bases and a common root.
• Words have a story to tell of their journey into English and once in English they continue to be shaped.
• The coining of a word is reflective of the culture of origin, as well as reflective of the time and culture when the word enters English.
• Some roots have produced many base elements and therefore many related words, some only one base and far fewer words.

Douglas Harper, Word Nerd Extraordinaire aka The ‘Emperor of Words’, as my students have dubbed him, expresses this far more poetically below:

‘You can walk in the woods and know nothing of the trees and enjoy the walk. So in the forest of words, but in both you see only half the life from the above the footpath.Etymology is the magic diving stick to see the roots. Some words are oaks as deep as they are broad and high, others shallow rooted corn. Pull on a bramble vine here and you’ll be surprised to see the movement in one hundreds of yards away. And some peeping toadstools in the moss are the tips of tangled mats as big as a house, threaded through the soil.’ ~ Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary)

Through this continuing inquiry into Greek roots and bases students are beginning to grasp the etymological ‘diving stick’ and are discovering the biodiversity in the forest of English words.