34. Sources of most recent loanwords

French is still the largest supplier of words to English, which may be because of the geographical proximity of France and Britain. We would, therefore, expect more French words to enter via British English than American. Similarly, Spanish loanwords are often borrowed from African Spanish into American English. The increase in the importance of Japanese as a source of loans is probably a consequence of the increased commercial importance of Japan in the world generally. The decline of Latin as a source of loanwords may have a dual explanation: on the one hand, it may be argued that English has already borrowed so much of Latin vocabulary that there is relatively little left to be borrowed; on the other hand, rather than borrowing directly from Latin, English now often makes new Latinate words from English morphemes originally from Latin.

35. Synonymy

Synonymy is a wide-spread relation in the vocabulary of English, for which the good evidence is provided by many synonym dictionaries and thesauruses. Beseech – implore (умолять), glitter – sparkle (блестеть), havoc – devastation (опустошение), lazy – indolent, native – indigenous, near – close, plentiful – abundant (обильный).

Beg – entreat – beseech – implore - supplicate. They all signify making an appeal which is likely to be refused. Beg suggests insistence and sometimes self-abasement. By entreating somebody one hopes to persuade somebody by earnest pleading reasoning. Beseech and implore convey vigor anxiety which seems to inspire sympathy or pity. Implore may be stronger with a suggestion of fearfulness or evident anguish. Supplicate adds to entreat a humble, playful attitude.

Such an attempt implies that even between identifiable synonyms there is some difference in meaning.

36. Strict and loose synonymy

When we speak about synonymy we mean different degrees of loose synonymy, where we can identify not only an overlap in meanings of two words but also some contexts where the synonyms can not substitute each other. Find – discover are substitutable in “She found/discovered the ball behind the garden shed” but not in the “Marie Curie discovered radium” or “Franz found it easy to compose sonatas”. As it is evident in this case, synonyms are substitutable only when their meanings overlap, but when the meaning falls outside of the shared area one can not be used instead of the other. Synonyms may overlap in meaning in more or less degree, though it is not clear how this might be measured, nor whether there is a limit at which the notion of synonymy becomes meaningless.

37. Distinguishing synonyms

We can make some generalizations but can not be sure that we cover all the cases. Some synonym pairs differ in that they belong to different dialect of English. The dialect may be one of the standards – British, American, Australian, or a regional dialect within a country or some area (South-West dialect of British English).

Ex. Br – Am.: bonnet – hood, caravan – trailer, drawing pin – thumbtack, farm – ranch, lawyer – attorney, lift – elevator, pavement – sidewalk, rubbish – garbage, flat – apartment;

Standard Br. – Northern Br.: anyway – anyroad, armpit – oxter, brew – mash, money – brass, child – bairn.

The second general way in which synonyms may be distinguished relates to the style or formality of the context in which words are used. One of a pair may be used in a more formal context than the other or can belong to slang or colloquial English while the other is in more general use.

Ex. Less – more formal: argument – disputation, beauty – pulchritude, cross – traverse, die – decease, give up – renounce, letter – missive;

Standard – slang: astonished – gobsmacked, crash – prang, destroy – zap, drunk – sloshed, heart – ticker, insane – barmy, money – rhino, prison – clink, steal – nick.

The third way of distinguishing synonyms is difference in connotations. Two words may largely share denotation but they may have divergent associative or emotional meanings. The denotation of two words push and shove largely overlaps - forceful propulsion forward; but shove connotes roughness or haste, which push does not. Here are some further pairs of synonyms that differ in their connotations: ambiguous – equivocal (deliberately), famous – notorious (disreputably), hate – loathe (with repugnance or disgust), misuse – abuse (of privilege or power), new – novel (strikingly), obtain – procure (with effort), persuade – inveigle (with ingenuity or deceit), proud – haughty (with disdain), recollection – reminiscence (with pleasure), simulate – feign (with craftiness).

4.There may be a collocation difference inside synonymous pairs or rows: rancid and rotten are synonyms, but the former is used only of butter or bacon; kingly, road and regal are synonymous, but mail has to be royal in the UK.