Story or History ~ Word Perfect by Susie Dent

 Story or History ~ Word Perfect by Susie Dent.

2nd December. 

If there was ever a time to dive into the imaginary stories of films and books Christmas is surely it. Whether it's the traditional story of the nativity or the tear-jerking narratives of movie like 'It's a wonderful life' it's time to bring on a bit of Magic.  The word story has a suitable long and involving history which takes in the Romans, Normans and today's social media, where we can eat share stories in very different way. In fact the words 'story' and 'history' were independent in meaning. The original stories were narratives of past events. The word comes from the Latin 'historia', but was reborrowed into English after 1066 from the French 'estoire'. By 1500 story described the dramatic representations of real events which could contain either fiction or fact.  We retain this ambiguity today, when we can read the story of a book, or in a newspaper  (some would say the two aren't  far apart) 

'Storey' with the added 'e', meaning the floor of a building is essentially the same words.  It originally referred to tires of painted Windows or sculptures used to decorate the facades of building, each depicting a historical subject - so each storey told a different story.