everal kinds of changes occur for several kinds of reasons. We'll look quickly again at woman/women, which changes its first syllable to mark plural, despite the deceptive appearance of spelling. Next will be the sound change in business, which will eventually take us to the great vowel shift in the mid 1400s to the late 1500s. Before we go there, we'll explore the late 700s in England, the time of the Viking incursions into northeastern England (also, by the way, to Ireland, whose capital has a Norse history).
1) Women and business
2) The Viking influence on English
3) The Great Vowel Shift and some history of English vocabulary
For the rest of the Fall we'll intersperse topics, including these, with voyages into the OED to explore the words that interest us. In this session I have a couple of candidates: protocol and cheap.
On to our subpages.