Old English Dictionary

[nq:1]By Old English, I mean words in modern use whose roots are in pre-Norman English, like get, got, hide, fight. Is there adictionary which contains nothing but these words ? If not, how did Churchill manage to write his speeches ?[/nq]
A good workman knows his tools: you yourself seem to be able to identify the class without difficulty, so I'm intrigued to know why you think Churchill woul

[nq:1]By Old English, I mean words in modern use whose roots are in pre-Norman English, like get, got, hide, fight. Is there a dictionary which contains nothing but these words ?[/nq]
Yes, there are dictionaries of Old English or Anglo-Saxon (same thing). I don't know if there are any free on-line, but they exist in book form as well as CD-ROM. Check book-dealers.
[nq:1]If not, how did Chu

Shouldn't there be two question marks at the end of "Is your question, 'How could he have known which words were old?'?"?

john

[nq:1]Did someone tell you that Churchill wrote out his speeches entirely in Old English before translating them into Modern English?[/nq]
He specifically said in the question (which you quoted) that he was using the term "Old English" in a way other than the one you replied to
[nq:1]I think Churchill wrote out some advice for good writing. At the moment all I can find is this: "Short ...

But the question wasn't at all clear, once slightly deconstructed.

Whatever, here's an A-S Dictionary I have bookmarked: http://beowulf.engl.uky.edu/~kiernan/BT/Bosworth-Toller.htm

Mike.

(Restoring what little context there was:)

How do you account for his saying "pre-Norman English," then? There wasn't much around before 1066 except for Anglo-Saxon/Old English.

I'm aware that some people use "Old English" to mean "any English that is old," and I can sympathize with that, because what else would you call it? But I don't get that impression here.
[nq:2]I think

[nq:1]I'm aware that some people use "Old English" to mean "any English that is old," and I can sympathize with that, because what else would you call it?[/nq]
Then there's our president, Jed Bartlet, who thinks Beowulf was written in Middle English.

Steny '08!

[nq:1]By Old English, I mean words in modern use whose roots are in pre-Norman English, like get, got, hide, fight. Is there a dictionary which contains nothing but these words ? If not, how did Churchill manage to write his speeches ?[/nq]
Though Churchill apparently didn't do very well at school, his education would have been seriously biased towards Latin and some Greek. So he would have be

[nq:1]I'm sure he'll let us know if we have collectively failed to divine his intent.[/nq]
And I for one hope he'll let us know even if we've succeeded. It didn't cost me much to attempt an answer, but I did apply a little thought and a couple of mouse-clicks, and would like to be told whether or not it was useful.
Mike.

[nq:1]But he would have known that most short, concrete (and hence effective) words came from our Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) heritage,[/nq]
Actually, quite a number of these words come from Danish. From the Danish colonization of Danelaw and the succeeding conquest of all of England {the kings Svein Forkbeard, Canute (Knud the Great), Hardeknud},
[nq:1]while longer, more abstract, Latinate wor