Monday, January 20, 2014

Tilting with Wend Mills


Before the 15th century, you might “go” somewhere or you might just as easily “wend” there.  Both words mean to “move on a course, or to pass from one point to another.”  Nowadays, you hardly ever see “wend,” except in the phrase “wend your way.” 
Both words had German origins, “go” from gehen, which made its way into Middle English as gan, and “wend” from wenten (“turn or go”), which became wendan in Old English.   The past tense of “go” was gaed, and the past tense of “wend” was went.  Sometime in the 15th century, “go” became the dominant verb, and “wend” passed into disuse—except for its past tense, went, which survived as a very irregular past tense for “go”—and in the phrase “wend one’s way,” that is “clear a path through a passage that is twisted or strewn with obstacles.”
The verb wend should not be confused with the noun Wend, which refers to a person of Slavic descent in Germanic areas. It comes from Old English Winedas, derived from German (Wenden), Swedish (Vendere), Polish (Wendowie), and Old Norse (Vindr). The largest settlement of Wends in the United States came in the 1850s and mostly wound up in Lee County, Texas, in an unincorporated town known as Serbin.  Also known as Sorbians, the Wends are Lutherans who are now affiliated with the Missouri Synod.
Some people say the Wends are the same as the Vends, but others maintain that Vends were a Latvian tribe with a Finnic language who moved into Wendish territory in the twelfth century and became absorbed into the Wends.
The Bard of Buffalo Bayou has been wending his way through life for many decades, not always completely successfully.
            Vends
            Wended;
            Wends
            Reprehended.
                       
            Vends
            Descended;
            Wends
            Defended.

            Wends
            Contended
            Vends
            Misapprehended.
           
            Wends
            Befriended
            Vends
            And blended.
           
            Wends
            Ascended;
            Vends
            Ended.



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