at least one other word ending in “~begone”, but I can’t capture it

On my way in this morning I decided that to get it off my mind I should agree with myself that the word I was trying to recall was “begirt” – nothing like a “~begone” ending at all really – but still! I have only a concise Oxford here, but it tells me that begirt, although meaning encircle, does not share the “bego” root as its stem is the same as for girth, being mediæval English from Old Norse gjörth.

The above led to the following simple thoughts on etymology for my simple mind.

Successive waves of settlers from Europe arrived in the British Isles bringing their language with them. Their entry point dictated the spread of their culture and each wave pushed back the existing residents. The entry point for a culture was usually (but not always) that closest to its home country, so the language mix varied regionally leading to bilingualism at the population overlaps followed by the absorption of words and terms from one language into the other. Eventually the whole mess was seasoned with French which in its turn was bastardised and partially absorbed.

The end result of all this is a fascinatingly varied etymology and a number of different words popular in different regions that all mean more or less the same, some (like begirt) eventually falling out of common use and others (like woebegone) proving robust survivors.

This combining of tongues has been followed by a period of exploration, expansion and imperialism resulting in the spread of the language around the globe but with divergent evolution taking place.

Perhaps eventually we wont understand each again. What was that about two great countries separated by a common language - why stop at two?

dxb