Victory!
So, I feel like I had a little victory yesterday. I was walking from one part of campus to another with new of the students in the class I’m teaching on the history of English and we were chatting. In the first class we talked bout the history of three different words in English that are synonymous (or at least partially so): ersatz, faux and fake. We looked at the earliest cited usage and some collocates and their roots. They both said that they had never seen ersatz before I wrote it up on the board in class.
And, then one of them said that she was reading a book for fun and came across it. She was pleased that she knew what it meant. And, I am pleased that I’m a nerd who likes words and that I was able to share it with her. It is a little thing, I know, but sometimes little things make you smile.
