Mysteries of vernacular: Window - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel

Transcriber: Andrea McDonough
Reviewer: Jessica Ruby

Mysteries of vernacular: Window, an opening constructed in a wall to emit light or air. When the Scandinavian settlers invaded England in the Middle Ages, they brought with them a whole slew of words whose modern descendants have become part of our everyday vernacular. Their word for window was related to the Old Norse word for the same architectural feature, vindauga.

Vindauga was a compound, composed of two separate words: vindr, meaning wind, and auga, meaning eye. The word vindauga was probably quite old, having come into being long before windows were made of glass. This type of metaphoric compound, called a kenning, was very popular in both Norse and Old English.

The beautiful literary trope was used in the Norse word for ship, literally "wave stead." And, in the epic poem, "Beowulf," where the sea is described as a whale road and blood is described as battle sweat and slaughter dew.

From its literal yet lyrical beginning, the word window has expanded beyond its concrete definition as a construction or design element to be used figuratively in phrases like the poetic "window of opportunity."