US president Donald Trump has popularized the phrase “fake news” But not too long ago these words in combination would have meant little to everyday English speakers.

Anatoly Liberman, a German, writes about the origins of the word “fake”. The word, it turns out, has a very dark past. The best guess for how “fake” became mainstream, argues Liberman, is that it was a kind used by thieves in the London underworld. But“how it got there, nobody in the world knows, and probably nobody will ever know,” he tells Quartz.

Liberman is a professor at the University of Minnesota and the author of Word Origins and How We Know Them. He writes that early records of “fake” as an English adjective appeared around the middle of the 18th century. The word likely comes from cant, or thief jargon(行话).

The OED mentions “fake” as a verb starting in 1819, which basically meant‘to do”in jargon, but also“to kill , wound, or rob”. An entry from a dictionary that year reads :

“To fake any person or place, to rob them ;to fake a person may also imply to shoot, wound, or cut; to fake a man out and out, is to kill him.”

Liberman traces the word next to Chares Dickens, who used “cly-faker”，where “cly” means pocket, in Oliver Twist. This is how he believes knowledge of “fake”as a word that means to steal, spread. Eventually it became a commonplace English word.

Many people believe that there is one form of their language that is more correct than others.They may believe for example that British English is more correct than other varieties; or that written English is more correct than spoken English; or that standard spoken forms are more correct than dialect forms. Often this belief is supported by reference books to grammars, usage guides or dictionaries: if something goes against a rule in a grammar, or if the word isn’t in the dictionary, it “must be wrong”. Since the reference books are most often based on observation of the standard written language (and not by a grammar book in the sky) , the argument is really circular: these books will naturally describe standard usage, because that is what they are for; but this does not mean that there is anything wrong with other kinds of usage that are less often described.

A better way of looking at things is to say that usage is “correct in its place”. Standard American English is correct in America, British English is correct in Britain, spoken grammar is accepted in casual speech, and formal written grammar is employed in formal writing. The only forms that are wrong in all contexts(语境) are learners’ errors. For example: I have forgetting the your address, or One of your chairs are broken. This means there is no answer to the question: “What kind of English should learners study?” It depends on their purposes. For many learners, the best model is one or other of the two main standard varieties : British or American English. Neither of these is “better” than the other, and they are both used and understood worldwide.

People are also worried by language change. If younger people “break” the rules that older people have learnt, or use language in new ways, older people often feel disturbed: they are concerned that younger people no longer know their grammar, and that the language is going downhill. This is a needless worry: change is natural and inevitable, it cannot be stopped, and it does not generally affect a language’s efficiency as a communicative tool. A great deal of modem English grammar would have been wrong three hundred years ago, and will perhaps be wrong again three hundred years from now.

Green is an important color in nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also the color of most growing plants.

Sometimes, the word “green” means young, fresh and growing. For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience. In the 15th century, a greenhorn was a young cow or an ox whose horns(角) had not yet developed. A century later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had no experience in war. By the 18th century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today—a person who is new in a job.

Someone who is good at growing plants is said to have a green thumb(大拇指). The expression comes from the early 20th century. A person with a green thumb can make plants grow quickly and well.

Green is also the color used to describe the powerful feeling, jealousy(嫉妒). The green-eyed monster(怪物) is not a dangerous animal from outer space. It is an expression used about 400 years ago by the British writer William Shakespeare in his play “Othello”. It describes the unpleasant feeling when someone has something he wants. For example, a young man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if you get a pay rise and he does not.

In most places in the world, a green light means to move ahead. In everyday speech, a green light means agree to continue with a project.