My question is, can you earn a single kudo?
Is this another case of they just are trying to hold on to the tail end of a dead language once it comes into English?
Coming up on Word Matters,
what English speakers do to and do with the words they borrow from Greek and Latin.
I'm Emily Brewster and Word Matters is a new podcast from Merriam-Webster,
produced in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Neil Servin, Amon Shea,
Peter Sokolowski and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
English is a mongrel that's built its word horde by borrowing from hundreds of other languages.
Some of the words it's adopted have easily and almost seamlessly settled into the lexicon,
but others maintain characteristics of their origin languages, until they don't.
Here's editor Neil Servin with a look at kudo,
a Greek borrowing that English eventually made fully its own.
I wanted to talk today about kudos.
Now, I don't mean I'm asking for kudos.
It's okay if you do.
I would take them if you give them.
But I wanted to talk about this word kudos that we use for praise or a fame that we get for an achievement.
Kudos for a job well done.
And I guess my question is, can you earn a single kudo?