Assessing Formality via the Root of the Word


Firstly, I'd point out that as this is a slightly open-ended question I'm not certain how well it fits in with the guideline. I'm hoping that the fact there's a way to define an answer means that it is not necessarily wrong.


So, the question came to me after reading this article here: English is not normal. What stood out for me was how the author described that a method of judging the formality of what is being said is through the origin of the word used -- the author also brought two distinct examples ('help'/'aid'/'assist' and 'kingly'/'royal'/'regal') where the Old English > English word is the least formal of the possible options, the French word is the middle ground and the Latin derivation is the most formal.


What other pairs of this kind exist, and is this the best way of determining formality? Does this mean that the best way to make a statement less/more formal is replacing words with their synonyms based on the origin of the synonym (example: "Kingly help was given"/"Royal aid was presented"/"Regal assistance was provided")?



Answer



The pattern works pretty well for the often mentioned animal/food pairs. informal animal:sheep


The list of pairs or triples is endless. Just a handful:



  • land/country/nation

  • friendly/amiable

  • drink/beverage

  • wound/injury

  • room/chambre

  • woods/forest

  • child/infant/juvenile


This is good rule of thumb, but isn't absolutely perfect. There's hips (OE) and haunches (hips/legs, OFr) and ham (leg (of ham) OFr), where hips is the most formal of all of them. Ward (OE)/guard (OF), corner/angle, neck/collar, harvest/autumn all seem of the same formality


Another difference, in addition to formality, is the Anglo-Saxon is usually more concrete, the Romance more abstract.


The pattern also works well for legal or medical terms: theft/larceny, hand:manual, knee:genuflect, head:capital (and then Greek neologisms are created for even more synonyms).


But these technical medical terms are more likely to be technical neologisms well after 1066, by scientifically minded individuals rather than social language sharing via an invasion.


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