3 thoughts on “ā-styrian

  1. Stunned to see the word “astirrin” as in, “she is astirrin’ things up” – I don’t talk like that, but immediately as I sounded that out, I could hear someone from another part of the United States saying that word, using that word, today, or perhaps jokingly saying it, as though someone would have spoken that word.

    And looking back a day, then sounding out yesterday’s word, I am stunned to realize it is “over-chilled.”

    That words can survive in a culture, meaning the same thing more or less, for so many hundreds of years is amazing to me. Shocking.

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  2. I think Old English “ā-styrian” found its way into Welsh as “ymystwyrian” – ‘to (be)stir, wriggle, stretch oneself and yawn’ and a back formation developed by dropping the productive, reflexive Welsh prefix “ym-” leaving “ystwyrian” – ‘writhe, be restless or uneasy, agitate, excite’.

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