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A way with words!

Pockets of civilizations started with confluences of humans sporadically in areas considered fertile, non hostile, hospitable and habitable.Over time, the inhabitants started developing sets of rules and governance to maintain law,order and sanity to the weaker one in the society. They developed the art of imparting knowledge to the progeny so the knowledge that their forefathers had acquired by trial and error would not be lost in translation or the annals of time! With the innate greed that was ingrained in the DNA, pretty soon, one civilization tried expand their land over the other. (Land = Crops = Produce = No hunger = Bargaining power = Respect = Primordial sexual needs satisfied)
One technique employed by the invaders was make subject of their conquest to look down upon their own achievements, even though advanced by light years, and to look upon the the visitors' feats awestruck whilst to discard their own. Awestruck, they were and discard, they did!
And so the whole world speaks English and its forms it is spoken. And not knowing to speak in the lingua franca of the world is cringed upon.
Like that, the product of the post-modern world like me seem to find greater joy in appreciating the finer points in English rather than my own mother tongue. One of the podcast that I enjoy listening to right now is 'A Way with Words'. It is a programme showcasing the use of the English for the people who use it as their native language. The presenters of the show make an interesting presentation of learning English in a very fun and imaginative way. Some of the information that one can pick up are quite mind boggling and sometimes plain simple. They also discuss some idioms and obscure expression, looking at it from a history perspective and origin.
For example, "I am going the cut the quick of you....". The word 'quick' in the phrase refers to life, just like quick-sand (sand appears alive), baby quickening (the baby is alive), the quick and death (living persons), nails bitten down to the quick (the tender, sensitive flesh of the living body)....
Some of the things may appear petty but to lovers of the language, it must be God-send. There is a difference between the usage if the word 'use' and 'utilize', if it really matters! If you use a stapler to staple, then you use a stapler. If you use a stapler to do something that it is not intended for, like to smack somebody on the head, then you utilize the stapler!

https://soundcloud.com/waywordradio/120922-awww-1349-good-juju-mp3
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