Why English language is sometimes "lazy", sometimes not - eviltoast

(non-native speaker)

Is there a reason why the English language has “special” words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?

And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.

  • Archelon@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Re: #6 prior to the invasions of the Angles/Saxons England was invaded by the Romans and a number of cities sprung up in the south populated by latin-speaking peoples. When Western Rome collapsed, the state capacity needed to maintain large urban centers went with it. The Roman inhabitants didn’t leave, though, but instead mixed with the local culture and the language dispersed into the general population of England.

    At the same time the only thing left of Western Rome’s larger institutions was the Church, whose organization was inherited from Roman civic structures and who were the ones preserving written knowledge, which would be written in Latin.