From The Spamfiles

I have to say, I’m loving not having to come up with actual ideas for posts.

Well, this seems vaguely threatening.

Goddamn it, Greg is still getting spam. They say they “matched” my email address to Greg. I want to know how!

Okay, meeting a random stranger online for a secret date is how you lose organs.

The emojis there seem to have cat ears. Am I online dating cats?

And this one’s asking if I like their new hat and I have to ask, who the hell wears hats anymore? Maybe baseball hats, but I still don’t see that all that much.

…Ever look at something and wonder what the audience for it is, then realize that there has to be one otherwise they wouldn’t be sending out stuff like this? Because I’m definitely having one of those moments.

Dyeing

Don’t give me any of that nonsense.

If it’s fun, why would you stop doing it?

Language of Confusion: Get

Usually the simplest words have the stupidest origins.

Get showed up in the thirteenth century, coming to us from the Old Norse geta, where it basically meant the same thing as what we use it for. It’s from the Proto Germanic getan and the Proto Indo European root ghend-, to seize or take. Interestingly enough, in Old English get was almost only used in parts of words—you know, like in forget. But the Old English word for get, gietan, is not where the Modern English get arrives (like I said, it’s from Old Norse). They do however happen to have the same root.

Now, I already mentioned forget, so let’s get into it. Unlike get, its origin is in Old English, where the word is forgietan, which is just forget. The for- is thought to mean a kind of negation, so it’s something like losing or being taken away or the opposite. Basically, the opposite of getting is forgetting.

And there’s one other word related to get: beget. Not that we ever use it much. It’s from the Old English begietan, and means something like acquire or obtain, but involving some effort, and it wasn’t until the thirteenth century that it had anything to do with reproduction. Misbegotten (which I think is probably used more these days than beget) is actually derived from beget. It showed up in the sixteenth century from misbeget, which was a word at one point even if it’s not now. And when it did first show up, it meant bastard, illegitimate (presumably referring to offspring), or unlawfully obtained (presumably not).

TL;DR: Forget isn’t from get, but they are both from the same word, so my opening comment was right.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

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

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

From The Spamfiles

I love these posts. Mostly because they’re really, really easy.

As opposed to all the 95% authentic Asian ladies online.

Will you leave me alone? Because that’s what I really want.

Okay, time for another rousing edition of Spot The Red Flag:

1. The (.)ru domain is just super shady.

2. They don’t use apostrophes, the monsters.

3. The delivery day was almost a year ago.

I don’t know. Do I or do not I like to contact via email or phone?

Because yeah, what do brain surgeons know? Anyway, I’m 100% sure that whatever they want you to eat will kill you, so I guess your tinnitus will be solved.

A spam comment on last week’s post about spam! The ouroboros is eating itself!

Sore

It’s a mystery.

Yeah, this comic is basically a combination of the previous two ideas.

Language of Confusion: Learning

Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Learn comes from the Old English leornian, which just means to learn so there weren’t any big jumps here. Although amusingly enough there was a word leorningcild, which means student, and is literally “learning child”. Anyway, leornian comes from the Proto Germanic lisnojanan, which actually had a sense of meaning that was “to follow or find the track”. I mean, you can see how learning is following a path? It’s actually from the Proto Indo European lois-, furrow or track. It makes sense (kind of), but still, wow.

Teach comes from the Old English taecan, which could mean teach or show, or even translate. The past tense of the word, much like our own version, switches from a c to a t. Which of course is because that’s where taught comes from. Taught came to us from the Old English tahte. No explanation why the letter switch, but let’s just chalk it up to Old English being Old English. Anyway, taecan comes from the Proto Germanic taikijan, to show, and the Proto Indo European root deik-, which has so many related words that it would take a long time to get through them. Maybe the next time I’m in the mood for doing a long series.

The origins of educate aren’t from Old English, so maybe it’ll actually make sense. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the classical Latin educatus, educated, and its verb form educare, which means teach or train. It’s actually related to another verb, educere, to lead, a mix of the prefix ex-, out, and ducere, also to lead. That word can be traced to the Proto Indo European deuk-, which means to lead and I’m sure has shown up in one of my etymology posts at some point.

Finally today, we’re looking at know. It comes from the Old English cnawan, which basically means know and yes, would have been pronounced with the hard C sound. It’s from the Proto Germanic knew and Proto Indo European gno-, to know, so this word stayed pretty steady through the years. Until we lost the K sound in front of it. Why’d we ever do that?

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

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

From the Spamfiles

Yep, more of this.

Oh, great. Another one for Greg. Now they want his ideas. I guess he’s an inventor?

And he has a lot of unclaimed assets.

Yes, I really did get all of these in the space of maybe a week. Just when I thought the Greg mail was drying up.

Obviously the reward is inside the phone, because there’s no way in hell I’d consider an iPhone a reward.

I guess they’re telling me I have a $50 gift card for Amazon? I’m not really sure. Maybe they’re saying the fifty dollars is a withdrawal. Or Amazon is the withdrawal on my fifty dollars.

Wow, all I have to do to stop receiving these emails is click this link! Then I’ll never have to worry about spam again!