Hearing the classic song ‘Yesterday’ on the radio I decided that it was time to look at this word.
The song, of course, was written by Paul McCartney in 1965, and released as a Beatles song.
It went on to become a number one song around the world.
It has, I am told, been covered by other artists more than 2,200 times—making it the most covered song in the world.
It started as just a melody.
Paul, apparently, woke up one morning with the whole melody in his head.
He sat down at the piano and began playing it to make sure he wouldn’t forget it.
For a month he played it to other musicians asking them if they had heard it before. When he was finally convinced it was an original melody, he wrote words to go with it.
But did you know it was originally called ‘Scramble Eggs’?
That’s a phrase he used just because it fitted the note structure of the melody (‘Scrambled eggs / Oh my baby how I love your legs/ But not as much as I love scrambled eggs’).
And then he got serious about it and wrote the words we know.
Which brings us back to the word itself.
‘Yesterday’ is a very old word.
Its Old English source word is found as early as AD 950 in the Lindisfarne Gospels.
It’s clearly the word ‘day’ with a prefix, but just what does the prefix mean?
The only similar word found in any related language is a word in Gothic (also ‘day’ with a prefix) which means ‘tomorrow.’
And in Old Norse there is a similarly constructed word which means both yesterday and tomorrow.
So, scholars think that the Old English word from which we get ‘yesterday’ also had both meanings—it could either mean the day preceding the present day or the day following the present day.
And the Oxford English Dictionary contains a quote from Sir Thomas More (from 1533) which includes the expression ‘if they tarry till yesterday’—indicating that ‘yesterday’ really did (at one time) mean either yesterday or tomorrow (with the meaning being determined by the context).
The latest edition of The Spectator Australia is at the newsagents now -- with the cartoon of Kevin Rudd on the front cover, and my 'Language' column in the back pages.
TO SUSCRIBE TO THE FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER SCROLL FURTHER DOWN THIS PAGE >>>>>>
MEDIA...
BY THE WAY...
The latest edition of Quadrant magazine is now in the newsagents -- including my article on 'Recognizing Racism".
The May-June issue of Australian Geographic is out now (with the tree frog on the cover) -- inside are my two small columns on 'Placenames' and 'Ozwords'.
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
The liveliest part of this website is usually the Q and A page -- be sure to check it out from time to time.
BOOKS:
* My latest book is -- "Defending the Gospel" (second, fully revised, edition). You can find it here: Defending the Gospel – matthiasmedia.com.au
* If you're looking for my recent book "Flash Jim" you'll find it here -- Flash Jim, The astonis
hing story of the convict fraudster who wrote Australia's first dictionary by Kel Richards | 9781460759769 | Booktopia
* You can find all Kel's books currently in print here -- Booktopia Search Results for 'kel richards'. We sell books, hardback, paperback, audio, CDs.
* And also here -- Amazon.com.au : Kel Richards
* And you'll find more here -- Search: 4 results found for "Kel Richards" – matthiasmedia.com.au
* Many of Kel's out of print books can be found at ABE Books -- Kel Richards - AbeBooks explaining words explain the term
