Downloading

All I want is to download a game. For crying out loud.

Have those stupid things ever correctly estimated how long it would take to download something ever?

Language of Confusion: Perfect Cell, Part II

Remember last week how I started talking about cell (coming from the Proto Indo European kel-, to cover/conceal/save) and it got crazy fast? Yeah. That was just a warm up for this week.

First today, we’re looking at hull. Like on a ship. And also like the outer casing of a seed, because people used to say that ship keels looked like open peapods, although it’s not totally sure that the two are related. The one thing that’s sure is that the seed covering hull comes from the Middle English hol/hole, from the Old English hulu, from the Proto Germanic hulu-, to cover. And that word happens to be from kel-. There’s also hold—not like holding an object, the hold of a ship. A ship hold showed up in the fifteenth century as a corruption of the Middle English holl, the hull of a ship. What? You thought it was because it was something that held cargo? Don’t be ridiculous.

Hall comes from the Old English heall, a large room in a residence where “social and public affairs of the house” take place, and somehow that’s descended from kel-. Maybe the house business was something they wanted concealed? Anyway, it didn’t mean a passageway until the seventeenth century, evolving from a sense that doors to private rooms in the house opened to the large public room. No, I’m not sure how you get from one to the other, I’m just reporting it (hallway came two centuries later, BTW, so that had no influence). Anyway, if you ever wondered why a town hall is called that, it’s because it’s one of the only uses of the word that’s close to the original meaning.

Next, hole. It comes from the Old English hol, which means a cave or pit, coming from the Proto Germanic hulan, which is from kel-. I guess because you can hide things in holes? Also related is hollow, which hole mostly replaced in English. It showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old English holh and Proto Germanic hul-, both of which we can probably assume are from the same words as hole descended from.

Finally today, a helm, as in, the one you’d wear on your head, not like you steer a ship. The word helmet showed up in the mid fifteenth century, and it’s possibly from helm. To be honest, people aren’t totally sure, so it’s just a guess that it’s from helm, which comes from the Old English helm, Proto Germanic helmaz, which is then from kel-. Since a helmet is a covering for the head, you can kind of see it, although not why they dropped the K and replaced it with H.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

University of Texas at Arlington

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

From The Spamfiles

Yay, it’s that time again!

I, on the other hand, do not.

Someone should tell Love Swans that Sexy Love is ripping them off.

Give her kisses and grab her butt!

All you need to give is your social security number, first pet, and mother’s maiden name.

…That’s a damned lie. No one has ever requested to be my buddy in my entire life.

What? It’s a perfectly normal email address.

Fandom

I’ve had... issues with my fan.

In real life, it was only a few hours. But what a quiet few hours.

Language of Confusion: Perfect Cell, Part I

Hey, I haven’t etymologized “cell” before! That’s the only criteria I need to do it! Also, this will be a multi-parter, but not a big multi-parter. I think we’ve had enough of that for now.

Cell showed up in the early twelfth century meaning a small monastery, before a small room for a religious figure inside the monastery. It comes from the classical Latin cella, which just means cell (and is an excellent brand of chocolate covered cherries), and is related to celare, to hide. That actually can be traced to the Proto Indo European kel-, to cover, conceal, or save. So because monks/nuns hide away in tiny rooms, that’s what a cell became known as.

Obviously, it’s morphed a lot since then. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that it was used in a prison sense. And yet amusingly, it was used in reference to brain in the fourteenth century, as people used it in reference to different “rooms” of the brain having different functions. In biology, it was actually used in the seventeenth century—so again, this predates the prison sense, although back then it was in refreence to different cavities in anything, like in honey combs, and it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that it specifically referred to first an electric battery, and then a few decades later an organism. As for the phone usage, cell there is short for cellular, which showed up in 1753 meaning “resembling cells”. That word is actually from the Latin cellularis, of cells. It was in 1977 that it was first used in relation to phones, because mobile phone systems were divided into “cells” served by transmitters. And then it was shortened again into cell phone.

Cell is related to a few other words by way of kel-, and of course that’s where things get amusing. Conceal is also descended from it, having shown up in the early fourteenth century as concelen. It’s from the Old French conceler, to hide, and the classical Latin concelare, to hide. Con- is probably intensive here, and we’ve already seen celare, so the word is “to really hide”. There’s also ceiling, which showed up in the mid fourteenth century as celynge. It comes from the Middle English ceil, to put a cover or ceiling over, and before that, the Old French celer, to conceal, and you see where this is going. It comes from celare, too. A ceiling covers/hides you, so…

Finally today, color. Yes, really. It showed up in the early thirteenth century meaning skin color, from the Anglo French culur/coulour and Old French color, color or complexion. It’s from the Old Latin colos, which means “a covering”, and is also from kel-. Fun fact, the Old English word for color was hiw, AKA hue.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

University of Texas at Arlington

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

Fordham University

Rice University

September Goals

Oh, right. This.

August Goals

1. Work on planning the sequel to the WIP. I didn’t expect to do this already, but everything’s been going so well on it, that I’m actually getting to the point where it’s ready to be written.

Well, I failed this goal. Mostly because instead of “planning”, I just went ahead and wrote it. I managed to get 50K down by the end of the month. Whoops.

2. Keep editing. Can’t get distracted by the shiny prospect of first draft writing.

Yeah, this is a major fail. It was too shiny! I couldn’t resist!

3. BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

At least I didn’t manage to screw this one up!

So, yeah. Things definitely didn’t go according to plan. I just enjoy writing about this world so much… I’m already two thirds of the way done. I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to resist.

September Goals

1. Well,  now that I’ve started, I might as well finish WIP-2.

2. Maybe actually get around to editing those old stories this time.

3. I should also update my etymology page. I don’t even have the case words up yet.

Let’s hope it’s easier to get my goals done this month. What are you up to?

Complainer

My break from the world was not long enough.

I mean, yeah. Pretty accurate.