one of the oldest written words in the english language stillin usage

[Herb Stahlke]

Not just rural areas.  The Chicago City Council is made up of alderman, and they have aldermanic elections.

Herb


We still have "aldermen" in some of our rural communities.

sally donlon



Joshua Nimocks wrote:

> I'm sorry.  I should have specified: alder, 'the head of a family or
> clan.'
>
> -Joshua Nimocks
>
> On Wed, 3 Mar 2004, Vida J Morkunas wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Vida J Morkunas <vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: one of the oldest written words in the english language still
> >               in              usage
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Hi Joshua,
> >
> > Alder = a tree of the genus Alnus; related to the birch
> >
> > Vida.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of
> > Joshua Nimocks
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 1:56 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: one of the oldest written words in the english language still in
> > usage
> >
> > Last May Allan, Metcalf sent out an email regarding WGN-TV news of
> > Chicago's claim that town is the oldest word in the English language.
> >
> > Well, 'town' (601) does appear to tie 'priest' and 'yield' for the OED
> > headwords, with the oldest citations, that are still in common usage.
> >
> > These three are beaten by chiule (550) and alder (600), which appear to
> > have fallen out of usage in the 19th and 14th centuries, respectively.
> >
> > In case anyone wanted to know,
> > Joshua Nimocks
> >