Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England, episode 143, The Champion of Christ.

So well and truly back in the saddle, feeling good. Looking a bit rubbish, but the HR department

tells me that feelings affect, so never mind. And thanks so much to everyone that's welcomed

me back, it's felt good. The view currently, by the way, seems to be initially that the

weekly word is good at the end, but look how can you possibly know if you've not heard

it at the start? So this week I'm going to start with the weekly word, and you can then

all tell me which is best. Deal? Grand. After the weekly word, we'll deal with the new

King and his religious policy and the Lollards. That'll take us up to the eve of the Aging

Corps campaign, which we can then start off next week.

So, my daughter wandered by the other day, and in a moment of the deepest, deepest

boredom, decided that it might be worth giving a chat with that a bit of a go. Have you ever

wondered, she said, why the plural of goose is geese, and yet the plural of moose is not

mese? Now, almost as soon as I've been told the answer to this, it was a bit like

poor old Sherlock Holmes from a daughter. Sherlock used to complain that as soon as he explained

one of his brilliant deductions, everyone decided it was trivially easy. The answer, of course,

is that these words originate from different sources. Goose is from a Germanic root, the

Old English, Goss, with the plural, geese, and shares the same root as many European languages,

Freeschen, Dutch, German, Norse, and so on.

Now moose, on the other hand, is a much later import of native American origin. It's a

word from the Abanakitan, from the area from Maine to Quebec, and it first appeared in

written form in a letter from a chap called Samuel Purchase. Samuel was part of the tradition

of early travel writing, along with a chap called Richard Hacklite, right at the end of the

...