I started making an image showing how “skirt” and “shirt” are from the same origin, but got a bit carried away with all the other words also related. So here are 23 English words all from the Proto-Indo-European word “*(s)ker-” (‘to cut’).
As a general rule: if a PIE word started with “sk”, and it reached English directly via Old English, it now as a “sh” at the start.
If it was borrowed via another Germanic language, it retains that “sk” sound.
And it if comes to us via Latin, it usually just starts with a “c”.
So now so we have “shirt”, “skirt”, and “curt”, via Old English, Old Norse, and Latin respectively.
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