Monday, April 22, 2013

Churlish

A churl is a person who is rude, mean, and generally unpleasant. It is actually an incredibly old word and can be traced back to Old English. Back then, though, it wasn't so negative.

Churls were commoners. They were the peasants, the working class. They were uneducated, and may have been perceived as crude by the royalty, but truly they were just regular people.

An interesting fact is that the name Carl actually comes from churl. The 'ch' sound was pronounced more like a 'k' sound, so German had the name Karl, which became Carl in America (as well as other languages like Carlos in Spanish). Similarly, Charles also comes from the same origin.

Though "churl" has fallen out of use, it is an interesting word to know. It's a fancy sounding word, and the origin of many fancy-sounding names, but it actually is a word talking of the low class.

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