Awkward by name and nature

As I put a title to the previous item, I was struck (as who would not be ?) by the thought that the word 'awkward' might be the only one in our language with the sequence 'wkw' in it.

And what does the word really mean ? We are used to forward, backward, upward, downward, onward and homeward (like the ploughman's weary way - see Gray's Elegy etc). These are all adverbs, but awkward appears to be an adjective.

But awkward was itself once an adverb, and the 'awk' part meant 'askew' or 'out of true'. So it meant 'wonkywise'. The first syllable derives, so the experts tell us, from Icelandic 'ofugr', which became in Middle English 'awk', signifying 'contrary' or plain 'wrong'. Contrariwise, as Lewis Carroll's Tweedledee used to say.

I suppose 'awk' was the nearest our English ancestors could get to pronouncing 'ofgur'. Who can blame them ?

Awkward by name and nature