My Web of Words - 12 - Rose

What is fascinating about the adventure of words is that there is never any real beginning. However far back you follow the thread, however carefully you work through each mutation and identify every borrowing and every drift or twist in meaning, there is always a nebulous, obscure and elusive 'before'. One could almost call this the dawn of words, the dawn of languages, in the same way that we speak about the dawn of time.

Of course, you can be content with the minimum. The word 'rose', for e...