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whinge: msg#00009

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: whinge

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The Word of the Day for September 10 is:

whinge \ WINJ\ verb
British : to complain fretfully : whine

Example sentence;
She urged her fellow workers to stop whinging about how
they were victims of "the system" and to do something to change
that system.

Did you know?
"Whinge" isn't just a spelling variant of "whine." They are
actually entirely different words with different
histories. "Whine" traces to an Old English verb, "hwinan,"
which means "to make a humming or whirring sound." When "hwinan"
became "whinen" in Middle English, it meant "to wail
distressfully"; "whine" didn't acquire its "complain" sense
until the 16th century. "Whinge," on the other hand, comes from
a different Old English verb, "hwinsian," which means "to wail
or moan discontentedly." "Whinge" retains that original sense
today, though nowadays "whinge" puts less emphasis on the sound
of the complaining and more on the discontentment behind the
complaint.






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