Before the 15th
century, you might “go” somewhere or you might just as easily “wend” there. Both words mean to “move on a course, or
to pass from one point to another.”
Nowadays, you hardly ever see “wend,” except in the phrase “wend your
way.”
Both words had German
origins, “go” from gehen, which made
its way into Middle English as gan, and
“wend” from wenten (“turn or go”), which became wendan in Old English.
The past tense of “go” was gaed,
and the past tense of “wend” was went. Sometime in the 15th
century, “go” became the dominant verb, and “wend” passed into disuse—except
for its past tense, went, which
survived as a very irregular past tense for “go”—and in the phrase “wend one’s
way,” that is “clear a path through a passage that is twisted or strewn with
obstacles.”
The verb wend should not be confused with the
noun Wend, which refers to a person
of Slavic descent in Germanic areas. It comes from Old English Winedas, derived from German (Wenden), Swedish (Vendere), Polish (Wendowie),
and Old Norse (Vindr). The largest
settlement of Wends in the United States came in the 1850s and mostly wound up
in Lee County, Texas, in an unincorporated town known as Serbin. Also known as Sorbians, the Wends are
Lutherans who are now affiliated with the Missouri Synod.
Some people say the Wends
are the same as the Vends, but others maintain that Vends were a Latvian tribe
with a Finnic language who moved into Wendish territory in the twelfth century
and became absorbed into the Wends.
The Bard of Buffalo Bayou
has been wending his way through life for many decades, not always completely
successfully.
Vends
Wended;
Wends
Reprehended.
Vends
Descended;
Wends
Defended.
Wends
Contended
Vends
Misapprehended.
Wends
Befriended
Vends
And
blended.
Wends
Ascended;
Vends
Ended.
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