Vacation Comics #3

It was really good cake.

Vacation Comics #2

I am most likely still alive.

Vacation Comics #1

Summer Vacation

Today’s comic is brought to you by the word ctrl and the letters C and V.

Enjoy a week of one panel barely original stick figure comics!

Language of Confusion: -Pose, Part III

The last set! I think. Unless there’s a word I missed. Let’s just hope there’s not.

First today is propose. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century, from the Old French proposer, which just means repose. And like most of the other words, it’s only -pose because French couldn’t keep the Latin suffixes straight and gave -pose the meaning of -pone. Actually, the correct suffix survives in the words proponent and propound, and the word propone did exist for a little while. But I guess it got dropped because that incorrect suffix was hung on everything else. All those words come straight from the classical Latin proponere, which is just propose. The pro- means before and the -pone means to lay or place. All together, the word is “to lay before”, which sounds like a proposal. The word malapropos also comes from propose—it’s just propose with mal (bad) stuck in the front. But it still really gets me is that we had the correct word for once and we still chose to use the wrong one.

Repose is a very satisfying word. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Middle French reposer and Old French repauser. Before that, it comes from the Late Latin repausare, cause to rest, a combination of re- (just an intensifier here) and pausare, to stop, the origin word for pause. However, repose is not completely without sin, as only one of its verb forms (lie at rest) comes from repausare. The other (put or place) comes from the classical Latin reponere, replace. It was probably changed to fall in line with all the other -pose words, because they just couldn’t help themselves.

Next is depose and deposition. The first showed up in the early fourteenth century while the latter showed up in the late fourteenth century. Plus, there’s also deposit, which showed up in the early seventeenth century. All the words (as usual) come from the classical Latin deponere, to set aside. The de- means away and ponere place, so to place away. Makes sense, as a deposit is money you put away and you depose a ruler you want away. The whole testimony under oath thing from deposition appeared in the fifteenth century. I’m not sure why it means what it does, but it might have to do with position originally meaning the position you took in an argument. It just got tangled up with the switched suffixes of depose and deposit.

Finally, to finish us off, the dispose words. Dispose and disposition showed up in the late fourteenth century, while indisposed showed up in the early fifteenth century. Dispose comes from the Old French disposer, arrange or regulate, from the classical Latin disponere, which could mean just dispose or arrange/regulate, like in French. Dis- means apart, and ponere you should know by now, so place apart. Which makes sense for the regulate thing. Also, when you dispose of something, you’re setting it apart (in the trash). Disposition seems a lot more figurative, like instead of arranging something physical, it’s the arrangement of your mind. Indisposed comes from either in- (not) and disposed or right from the Late Latin indispositus, confused or disordered. Originally meant unprepared in English, then it morphed to diseased and then not well. All of which are not being in order, I guess.

TL;DR: All -pose words should really be -pone.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Orbis Latinus

University of Ottawa, Canada

Ten

As I mentioned last week, Windows 10 finally came out and I was (eventually) able to download it. That eventually is there for a reason. It was such a pain in the ass to get started. First of all, if you want it for free you have to reserve a copy, which I did months ago because as I spent an entire post talking about, I really, really hate Windows 8.

So there was this little icon in my taskbar that said “Reserve your copy of Windows 10!” months after I had already done so and then, when it finally came out…nothing happened. I got sick of waiting and went to Windows Update and sure enough, there was “One Important Update” waiting to be downloaded. But that wouldn’t do it on its own. Because of course not.

Whatever. I clicked download the update and…well, something happened this time, it started downloading, but then it told me that my antivirus software had to be uninstalled for 10 to download. Reluctantly, I did that. And it still wouldn’t frigging download.

I stopped the process and restarted it a bunch of times before it worked—and I have no idea why it started working, just that it did. The ordeal was over, I had Windows 10. The question was: would it be as much of an abomination as 8?

Answer: no, but only because that would be close to impossible. Still, it’s not terrible. It has an actual start menu instead of that horrible page of Apps, and while that’s better, I’m still a little ambivalent about it. It seems to work, but part of me thinks that I only like it because I hated the other one so much. And speaking of things that are hated, they finally got rid of Explorer. Instead they have “Edge”, which is basically Explorer with a new name, I don’t know why they bothered. Yes, it’s different, but it still sucks and I’m sticking with Chrome.

Despite how annoying it was to install, I have to say it’s a definite improvement. I have heard people report varying degrees of frustration and even computer breakage, but those seem to be a small minority. Even my complaints about the installation don’t seem to be common, and it seems it’s just the usual Microsoft “We tried really, really hard this time and it almost works!” stuff. If you have Windows 8, absolutely upgrade and enjoy a user interface that is something like user friendly. Anything else (especially Windows 7…sigh, remember that?) and you can wait until you get a new computer.

I HAVE SPOKEN.

Birthday Shopping

My mom told me to make a wish list on Amazon so she could pick out something for me. But apparently, there was a small complication…

Seriously, there’s a weird number of people with my half-French half-German name.

Language of Confusion: -Posed, Part II

Whoo! Here we go! As you’ll recall from last week, the suffix -pose is totally incorrect since French decided that when a Latin word ended with place, ponere, they’d just switch it to the etymologically distinct Latin word for rest, pausere, because it almost sounds like the noun version of ponere, positionem (position, obvs). Because, you know. Why not.

Now, on to this week’s words…

Impose first showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning literally “to lay (a crime, etc.) to the account of” and two centuries later morphed to what we know it as. It comes from the Old French imposer, which could mean put or place as well as charge or accuse. The im- comes from the prefix in- and means in (stop me if I’m going too fast for you). -Poser is of course from the Late Latin pausare, which as I mentioned, is not the same as ponere even though ponere’s definition (place) is the one being used. Basically, impose is “place in” which I guess makes sense for something like a crime that’s being laid on you. Superimpose is just impose with the prefix super on it. It showed up in 1787 (yes, that specific). Super- as a prefix means above, over, or beyond, so superimpose is “to lay over in”, which is pretty close to what superimposing is.

Next, compose. It first showed up in the early fifteenth century as compousen (I guess it wasn’t cool enough). It comes from the Old French composer, put together or arrange, a mix of the prefix com- (with or together) and the not-real -poser. The Latin equivalent of the word is componere, settle, and the literal meaning of the word is to place together, which does kind of sound like settle. We also decompose, which just comes from sticking de- in front of compose. What does that de- mean? Opposite of. So instead of settling together, it’s settling apart. And interestingly enough, composite has a slightly different etymology, coming from the Old French composite and classical Latin compositus, the past participle of componere. Rather than the mix-and-match prefix + wrong word root of the others, composite is a sensible etymology.

Transpose showed up in the late fourteenth century, and again it was from Old French, who screwed it up. The word there was transposer, transfer or render symbolically, and it came from the classical Latin transponere, which meant either transfer or literally to place over. In this case, trans- means over, so this word is place over, which is pretty much what transposing is. And of course, like composition, transposition actually comes from its Latin progenitor, transpositionem. It must be that s in there that screwed French (and thus English) up.

Finally today, juxtapose, which is easily the most fun of these words to say. It showed up in 1851 while juxtaposition showed up in the mid seventeenth century. The words are so recent that they actually come from modern, not Old, French, where they’re just juxtaposer and juxtaposition. Nope, didn’t even attempt to make that one original. Now, French was the language that cobbled this word together, taking a Latin word and adding position at the end. Because classical Latin doesn’t use J the way French does, their word is iuxta, beside or according to. So it’s a position next to…juxtapose.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Orbis Latinus

Slowing Down

What a month already. If I had known it was going to go this bad, I would have made different goals for the month because life is really getting in my way back now (as Saturdays post indicated). It takes every bit of effort I have just to concentrate on the stuff that I have to work on, so when I do have free time, well, I really need it to try and relax (now there’s on oxymoron for you).

Sigh. I’m quite bummed about this, especially since August is my birthday month and only good things are supposed to happen. I can only hope that when it comes, September will get rid of all the stressful things and maybe I’ll actually have some time to write.

I guess that’s it for today. Sorry I couldn’t be more entertaining : P. As I’m typing this I’m also downloading Windows 10, so fingers crossed there aren’t any huge issues. Maybe next week I’ll be able to review how horrible it is, but at least it’s less horrible than Windows 8.

Later, gators.

Life

Last week…was not fun…

Apparently everything bad had been piling up to pounce on me all at once…

Language of Confusion: -Posed, Part I

Yes, another multiparter, and this one will be at least three. There are a lot of words with pose/position in them. This will actually take me through all of August up to my birthday, which, I don’t know, I guess is something.

Pose first showed up as a verb in the late fourteenth century as posen, where it only meant suggest, assume, or concede. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that it meant pose like you would a body, which was influenced by the French usage of the word. Pose (or posen, rather) comes from the Old French poser, place or propose, and LateLatin pausere, rest or cease (and also gave us pause, by the way). And weirdly enough, the word position isn’t related to it. It showed up in the late fourteenth century as a term in logic and philosophy, coming from the Old French posicion, position, and classical Latin positionem, also position. That word is actually from the word ponere, to place but apparently the French conflated the Late Latin’s pausere with the classical Latin ponere/positionem and that stuck all the way through English. And now words that should end in -pone end in -pose.

Oppose first showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French oposer, oppose, as well as poser, the same word from above. Which means of course, that there technically is no etymology beyond that. Poser was combined with the classical Latin opponere, to oppose, which is the prefix ob-, against, and poner, to place. So that makes this word “to place against”, which sounds like oppose to me. Also, opponere is also the origin word for opponent, where the etymology actually makes sense.

Next, expose showed up in the early fifteenth century, coming from the Old French exposer/esposer, which could mean lay open, set forth, or speak one’s mind. Like the other -pose words, its Latin word has a different etymological line. It’s exponere, to explain, a mix of the prefix ex-, meaning forth in this case, and ponere, to place. So it’s to place forth, just with words, which kind of makes sense. And like with opponere, exponere’s etymology is more clearly seen in other words, like expound and exponent.

Suppose showed up in the early fourteenth century meaning “to assume as the basis for an argument”. It comes from the Old French suposer, to assume, which actually had an earlier (and correct) form in suppondre. Further back it’s the classical Latin supponere, which had a variety of meanings, from suppose to subordinate to place under. The sup- comes from the prefix sub-, under, and ponere, place. So the Latin uses of the word kind of make sense—subordinate is literally stand under—although I’m not sure how the other definitions came about.

Finally today, we’re looking at purpose and unlike the other words, it is not a Latin word confused by French. In fact, it’s pretty much entirely of French origin. It showed up in the early fourteenth century, from the Anglo French purpos and Old French porpos, intention. Porpos comes from proposer, to put forth, a mix of the French prefix por- (which comes from the classical Latin pro-) and poser, to place. So “to place forth” becomes to put forth, which somehow turns into intention. Nope, no idea. But it’s interesting that purpose is the only one of these words where the accent is on the first syllable. I wonder if it’s the French origin.

TL;DR: All words that end in -pose should really be -pone because Latin words, but aren’t because of French.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Orbis Latinus

Fordham University

August Goals

Wow. July is done already. My birthday is this month, and just a few months after that, 2015 is going to be over. Am I the only one who feels like time sped up, like, a lot?

Anyway, goals. Let’s see how I did.

July Goals

1. Figure out what I want to do with the fantasy idea that I have. Obviously I want to write a book, but I have to see about having the time!

Hey, I did this! Part of me still thinks it’s a good idea, but of course there’s another part that says no, it’s too cliché, it’ll never work. Sometimes you just have to fight off that voice.

2. Work on my other projects and hopefully make enough money to, you know, live.

Yes, I did this. And I’m still alive, so I guess that’s something.

3. Start working on extra post ideas because next month is August and you know that’s vacation month. And my birthday! WOOOO!

And I did this, too. Wow, I’m really on fire. I think this has been my most successful month yet!

I did really well this month. That’s definitely a confidence booster.

August Goals

1. Try to write 10K on one of my WIPs. I hope I have the time! Maybe during my vacation.

2. Get my birthday week posts ready. These will probably be stick figure comics : )

3. VACATION!!!!!! Do I have enough exclamation points?

I think this month is totally doable. It sure is hot, though. So what are you up to this month?

Barbecue Sauce

Another true story.

If you ever wonder why something is so good, the answer is probably sugar.