Today we have trolling and online abuse. But if you goes back to the Middle Ages, if you heaped calumny on head of a man by exposing him to slander or false accusations, which was calumny means, he would probably in all likelihood challenge you to a duel. And in that collection of words that we've just spoken there, you can see directly how one word can actually spawn another, which is obviously how English evolves. Because the term calumny actually gave birth to the word challenge. They both goes back to the same, calumnia, the Latin root, simply because slander and lies so often led to a deadly duel. Duel, incidentally, goes back to duellum, which was a fancy form of Latin, bellum, meaning war. So it's linked to being belligerent and bellicose. But two opponents in an argument, in a duel, might also take to the sword, and if they decided to formalise it, maybe with a little bit belligerence, to fencing. And we actually take a few words from fencing as well, including foible. A fouble is a weak point of a sword. The strong point is the forte. But we get that directly from fencing. But lots of other words in English from sword. Gladiator, because the Romans' word for sword was gladius. And the wild lilies that are the gladioli as well, because of their sword-shaped leaves. And finally the Saxons were warriours with knives because the old Norse, sax, meant a short sword or a dagger.
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