Stahlke Adoption

Remnant

Last spring, I listened to a book on tape that outlined the history of the English language. In the very old days, English speakers declined nouns in the same way that Ukrainians do. The endings on words change, depending on the word's function in the sentence. It has always struck me that our children's Ukrainian names are spelled differently if they are used as a subject or an object in a sentence.

In English, most declension of nouns has faded away. But as I was doing taxes recently on Quicken, a remnant of the old system jumped out at me. As a payer, I handle our bills, but a company receiving my payment is a payee.

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:46 AM