Can't recommend this enough

Og her en liten video med de tangspisende sauene på North Ronaldsay, Orknøyene

Yeah, that's not a very good explanation. We don't know why verbs sometimes count as stressed and sometimes unstressed, but it's definitely not because of semantics! It must have more to do with the details of sentence prosody, but it's a much-debated topic.

@ahannahim.bsky.social

There are 155 with 4 digits, 987 with 3, 1776 with 2, and 4807 with 1 - 2741 of which are hapax legomena

Been going though Orchard's Word-Hord, which has incredibly useful - but frustrating hard to manipulate - frequency info.
However, with a bit regex - (\D|^)\d{5}\+?> - we can see that there are 5 words with a 5 digit frequency count. Guesses welcome

clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/wordhord-v2....

Thanks. Would love to be proved wrong but I think the semantic argument, which gets mentioned often but not (as far as I've seen) explained, is a bit of a fudge

Old English Metre: An Introduction — p. 28 adjectives, non-finite verbs (i.e., infinitives and participles), many adverbs, and some 'heavy' pronouns (e.g., gehwylc 'each,' gehwæþer 'each (of two)'). Proclitics, which appear immediately before a stress-word so as to depend on it, do not normally receive rhythmic stress; they comprise prepositions, demonstratives, possessives, copulative conjunctions (e.g., ne, ond), and prefixes. Finally, particles lie midway between the other two categories: although not subordinated to any element, they do not have a fully semantic force and hence usually fail to receive stress. Particles include finite verbs, demonstrative adverbs, personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and some conjunctions. Particles and proclitics can bear rhythmic stress under certain conditions. In verse, particles are normally placed together at the beginning of the clause, either before or after the first stress-word while proclitics stand immediately before the stress-word they depend on. If displaced from these normal positions, particles and proclitics receive rhythmic stress. Compare the following two excerpts from Beowulf:

Feel like I've got a fairly good handle on OE metre now but can't make sense of finite verbs not receiving stress on semantic grounds. What does it mean to say that "they do not have a fully semantic force"?
'Bites' is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in 'Man bites dog'

Thanks!

Colour photo of a view across fields to the sea and a heather topped hill in Rousay, Orkney.

Very happy to back in Wasbister, Rousay to look at #PlaceNames!

Egilsay from Rousay

Good to (very briefly) see you both. You couldn't have picked a better day @shroomgirl.bsky.social @matthew-blake.bsky.social

Worldle - Guess the Country A daily geography game where you guess the country from its shape and get clues with every attempt. Play daily or explore the archive.

Didn't look like it all!
#Worldle #1552 (22.04.2026) X/6 (95%)
🔥 Current Win Streak: 0 days
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨↘️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬆️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬇️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬆️

worldle.teuteuf.fr/share

Thanks Judith. Michael was down there today and took a video of the bay. Like you say, we could really do to see it from the sea. I'll encourage him to get in boat

www.facebook.com/share/v/18R2...

#Worldle #1551 (21.04.2026) 1/6 (100%)
🔥 Current Win Streak: 3 days
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉

worldle.teuteuf.fr/share

Hmm, going by Blöndal, it seems like it could be low lying land, a plain

@judithjesch.bsky.social

FB screenshot. Text: Fleshwick Bay (Flesja(r)-vík) 'green-spot bay' (paraphrasing Broderick, (PNIoM VI 420)). The hill across the bay is Kione Beg (An Ceann Beag) 'the wee head'

Cleasby & Vigfússon (1874) Data are used with permission from old-norse.net, developed by Scott Burt: see the About page for full details of the contributions to this work. FLES, f., pl. flesjar, [cp. flas, flaska], a green spot among bare fells and mountains, Edda 52 (in a verse), Þd. 12.

Michael posted this over on our Ainmean Charraige page (which is now taking in Manx names). The 'green spot' gloss for FLES looks to be taken from Cleasby Vigfússon. But FLES means skerry in the verse they cite: fles galdara (skerry of incantations = teeth). Not sure where they got 'green spot' from

OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.

Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.

(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)

Worldle - Guess the Country A daily geography game where you guess the country from its shape and get clues with every attempt. Play daily or explore the archive.

#Worldle #1550 (20.04.2026) 2/6 (100%)
🔥 Current Win Streak: 2 days
🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜⬆️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉

worldle.teuteuf.fr/share

Wiktionary screenshot: Proto-Germanic edit Etymology edit From Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see; look; look for; find”). Pronunciation edit IPA(key): /ˈwiː.tɑ.nɑ̃/ Verb edit *wītaną[1][2] to see; know to go; go forth; part to punish; torment

Proto-Germanic wītaną has an odd (to me) range of senses

Reposting this as there must be OE metrics fans on here
@phil-lol-ogist.bsky.social

swallows spotted in Galloway.
No sign of swifts or housemartins yet

Lord of the Rings: How To Read J.R.R. Tolkien YouTube video by Carnegie Mellon University's Dietrich College

Enjoying this but it's striking how, just twelve years into the future, mentions of lol cats and epic fails feel like ancient history
youtu.be/lXAvF9p8nmM

Done. Will post later

Processing: Homiletic Fragment I... Homiletic Fragment I: 318 unique words Saved 15176 words to oe_frequencies.csv Saved poem summary to poem_summary.csv Saved 10869 exclusive words to poem_exclusive_words.csv Progress: 8/413 (1.9%) Processing: Dream of the Rood... Dream of the Rood: 909 unique words Saved 15412 words to oe_frequencies.csv Saved poem summary to poem_summary.csv Saved 10997 exclusive words to poem_exclusive_words.csv Progress: 9/413 (2.2%) Processing: Elene... Elene: 4704 unique words Saved 17338 words to oe_frequencies.csv Saved poem summary to poem_summary.csv Saved 12032 exclusive words to poem_exclusive_words.csv Progress: 10/413 (2.4%) Processing: Christ... Christ: 5816 unique words Saved 19977 words to oe_frequencies.csv Saved poem summary to poem_summary.csv Saved 13735 exclusive words to poem_exclusive_words.csv Progress: 11/413 (2.7%) Processing: Guthlac...

Made the script more useful

Fetching poem list... Found 413 Old English poems. 413 poems remaining (of 413 total). Processing: Genesis... Genesis: 7704 words Progress: 1/413 (0.2%), 7704 unique words so far Processing: Exodus... Exodus: 2753 words Progress: 2/413 (0.5%), 9217 unique words so far Processing: Daniel...

Worldle - Guess the Country A daily geography game where you guess the country from its shape and get clues with every attempt. Play daily or explore the archive.

#Worldle #1548 (18.04.2026) 2/6 (100%)
🔥 Current Win Streak: 1 days
🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉

worldle.teuteuf.fr/share

The iconic British film 'The Wicker Man' is on BBC2 now. One of my favourite films of all time: haunting & chilling in places while beautifully shot in Dumfries & Galloway & my home town Kirkcudbright. So many stars but do think Edward Woodward & Christopher Lee stand out.

@colingorrie.bsky.social

If anyone has access to this, please let me know