Especially when you read poetry, editors frequently have to explain usages as archaic, regional, dialectal, poetic, idiosyncratic, jargon or just plain odd. When I read these in English, I relish the archaisms b/c of my interest in historical linguistics. When I read them in other languages, I enjoy comparing them to English and other languages. Urdu, for instance, the word bajaae means instead of. ba is borrowed from Persian and means ‘in’, ja means ‘place’. Look at the English: in – stead; stead is a place but found only in the expression ‘in his stead’ and compounds like instead and homestead. It is from an earlier stage of the language. The Urdu is borrowed from Persian. But in English we have an equivalent word, in lieu of from French lieu = place (from Latin locus I
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
