Just plain interesting stuff

As I have already told you. I am a fan of how this, the language, my mother tongue developed. And, with the help of a man called Melvyn Bragg, who wrote a book called:

THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A LANGUAGE

Let me share some interesting things. But if you really want an adventure buy the book. There's a television series to go with it by the way.

He has a list of 100 most common words. Most of them come from Old English. Three are from Old Norse, and the first word of French origin only cuts in at 76 so what are these words?

Here goes.

1. the
2. of
3. and
4. a
5. to
6. in
7. is
8. you
9. that (this is a word you edit out of your manuscript)
10.it
11.he
12.was
13.for
14.on
15.are
16.as
17.with
18.his
19.they (Old Norse)
20.I
21.at
22.be
23.this
24.on
25.from
26.or
27.one
28.had
29.by
30.word
31.but
32.not
33.what
34.all
35.were
36.we
37.when
38.your
39.can
40.said
41.there (Old Norse)
42.use
43.an
44.each
45.whch
46.she
47.do
48.how
49.their (from old Norse)
50.if
51.will
52.up
53.other
54.about (Useful word. Canadians say aboot. Americans don't ;-))
55.out
56.many
57.then
58.them (Old Norse)
59.these
60.so
61.some
62.her
63.would
64.make
65.like
66.him
67.into
68.time
69.has
70.look
71.two
72.more
73.write
74.go
75.see
76.number (first of the French origin words)
77.no
78.way
79.could
80.people
81.my
82.than
83.first
84.water
85.been
86.call
87.who
88.oil
89.its
90.now
91.find
92.long
93.down
94.day
95.did
96.get
97.cme
98.come
98.madae
99.may
100.part

But wait there's more.

Britain was invaded. It was a nice little earner. And I'll dig up some more interesting stuff about this ministrone soup called English.