Happy New Year! Thank you for coming back to my blog. I will try to post thoughts/events/pics as often as I see fit again this year, and hope you enjoy them.
I thought I'd start off another year the way I started the blog last March, with a word that I find charming or quaint, but that is not widely used. This time, the word is:
Nigh, literally "near," or "almost." With origins in Old English, this word is only used poetically nowadays, as the word "near" means virtually the same thing. but has come to have more versatility.
As an example of its poetic or lyrical sense, we still use the word whenever we sing the Christmas carol Away In a Manger: "...and stay by my cradle (or, side un) til morning is nigh," depending on which version you use.
As a kid, like many others, I used to sing this song in Sunday School, but would think, "Pssh! Silly writers! They mean "til morning is night - they've just left off the last letter!" Ah, the certainty of youth! Of course, "til morning is night" doesn't make any sense, since you're asking Jesus to stay with you through the night, not through the day. "Stay by my (whatever) til morning is near," is what it means; it just took many years (and lots of reading) for me to figure that out.
Well, nowadays, you might see the word as the answer in a crossword puzzle (which is what inspired me to write this post), but in popular usage, it's well-nigh obsolete (bazinga!).
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