I love language, and I like that you love language, too, Clare. You are correct about the word black coming from blackened as in a result from cooking/burning.

But I know blank quite different from the idea you proffered: flooded.

The streets were flooded. The streets stood blank.

No, that's not English; that's a literal translation of a common Dutch sentence where streets were often flooded when the dikes weren't tall enough. The word is also used for white people.

In English, a similar use is seen with blanketing. The campaign blanketed the market with its information, meaning the information was ubiquitously found anywhere one looked. The word blanket can be recognized in covered. The market was covered with that information. Blank can be read as covered, as providing no other details than that.

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The word bleach in Dutch is bleek, and next to the chemical compound that word is also the past tense of "as it turns out to be" and it points toward a process in which changes are established. Bleek is used after a first description of how things were thought to be, but then it 'bleek' to be different. The perspective was changed, a surprise is packed in with the storyline.

“You look blackened” doesn’t sound like a compliment, but in Dutch (blakend) it means you look very healthy and great. But geblakend means for food it got burnt somewhat.

Gebleekt and geblakend (bleached and blackened) are each others opposite. And there is another Dutch word to mention here: blik. With blik, one can also declare a look. If blikken could kill (if looks could kill). This word should provide the ultimate perspective, because a blik is a look indeed, but it is a look of short duration, not a long stare. So, again, we see a superficial appearance in bleek/bleach, blakend/blackened, and blik/look. We can apply the words skin deep here, so it is not the essence, but just the appearance.

Black in Dutch is zwart, and Shakespeare has used that word, too, showing that swart is the original English word for black. I do not know why it fell out of grace and why the dark appearance as indicated with the word black ended up replacing swart. In Shakespeare’s time, English was involved in quite the upheaval (more than any other language I know). Compared to English, Dutch is very stubborn, holding on to its roots.

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Lastly, but I am moving out on a limb now, some words here about the word word itself, just to add some fun. In Dutch, one can say: Ik word ziek. I become sick. As such, if following this train of thought, the word word means itself become/becoming. At first there is something without a name. Then, we attach a word to it. And in the end the word has become the thing, fully associated with it.

Thank you for your fun article, though I had a harder time following the words with different origins and writing methods. You are definitively writing for a specialist group, and that is fine.

Thanks again.