Words

It’s the last day of the year! And it’s an etymology day! So let’s have some fun by looking at words that sound dirty but really aren’t.

1. Tittle actually is the word for the dot above lowercase i’s and j’s.

2. Interrobang is just the word for !? or ?!. It just sounds dirty because of the “bang”.

3. Ligatures are two or three letters joined together, like æ, as well as what you tie someone’s hands with when you lock them in your basement.

4. Genericide isn’t the killing of generals. It’s the word for using a brand name as a generic name for an item, like how we usually call them thermoses when they’re really insulated containers. Why it has the suffix associated with killing a human, I don’t know.

Is there any word out there that you’ve always thought sounded dirty even if it wasn’t? And what are you doing for New Year’s Eve?

Reflections 2015

Whoops! This was supposed to go up earlier, but apparently I forgot. Not that I wanted to do it much anyway, mostly because shortly after I made my resolutions for the year my life kind of got upended and then it only grew more upended as 2015 went on. I had to greatly reorganize my priorities, so a lot of things got put on the wayside, including a lot of my writing : (. Basically, this year sucked.

Resolutions 2015

1. Finish REMEMBER. It’s been over a year now! I’m hoping to get it out to beta readers by summer, but if time keeps moving as fast as it is, who knows? (I mean, it’s clearly not me…right?)

Yeah, this was one of those things that got set on hold. Maybe by the time I can finally work on it again, urban fantasy will be in again.

2. Write a new book : ). This should be easy. I have a few ideas rolling around my head, but no spark yet. Which is good, as I have enough on my plate right now.

I wish! I have several good ideas now, but no time to write!

3. Make more manageable goals. Sometimes I think I reach too far, and I end up crushed when I don’t get even close to my goal, and then I don’t think I can do anything…etc. etc. This is me, trying to be more positive by understanding my limits. Let’s see how long this one lasts.

Hey, I actually did this one. Go me.

4. Rewrite an old book. There’s one WIP I’ve been telling myself I’d rewrite for ages and never getting around to doing so. So here it is on my list, and hopefully I’ll get to it.

Sadly, no. This definitely got shuffled down to the bottom of my priorities list. A shame! I’d really like to get to it some day.

5. One stick figure comic a week! More manageable goals, remember? : )

Yes, I did. Aren’t you guys lucky?

6. Cut back on sugar. Ugh, I hate this one, but I really do need to cut back…

Frig, I made this a goal? That was probably a mistake.

7. Be awesome. Oh, wait, I always am anyway.

Well, obviously.

I did pretty good, considering. I just wish I could have completed my writing goals. I need something that slows down time so I can get more done.

What about you? How was 2015 for you guys? Did you keep any resolutions?

Why Does She Even Ask?

My mom does a lot of baking for the holidays, and I always offer to help. Even though the result is always this.

Pre-Christmas Filler

Today’s filler comic is going to be even lazier than Tuesday’s. How is that possible? you might ask. Don’t underestimate me. I am so lazy that I am just going to throw up a comic from last Christmas and pretend that it’s new! And no one can stop me!

Gone

<Gasp> Where am I?

I’ve gone to see a certain movie that came out last Friday. Back later. Don’t expect a real post. But I should be around later to comment on your blogs and stuff.

Yes. That’s right. It’s the new Alvin & The Chipmunks movie. You caught me. (PS that’s a blatant lie; you know what I’m going to see)

Additional Options

I hate it when my internet craps out on me.

In all fairness, the computer had it coming as much as the modem did.

Why oh why is it never able to figure out why my internet isn’t working? And then sends me to look up information on my problem online? IF I COULD, I WOULDN’T BE HAVING THE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE WOULD I?

Language of Confusion: Internal Organs

Because this is something you’re interested in, right? So I’ll etymologize a bunch of organs. Not heart, though, because I already did it in an A-to-Z post. So on to the rest.

Lung

Lung showed up in the early fourteenth century, coming from the Old English lungen (which meant lung shockingly enough) and the Proto Germanic lungw. No, I have no idea how it was pronounced. Lungu? Lunge? Anyway, lungw literally translates to “the light organ”, and that’s light as in the opposite of heavy, not the opposite of dark. It comes from the Proto Indo European legwh (nope; no idea), which can mean not heavy or agile, and just happens to be the origin word for lever as well. Now the reason lungs are lights is probably because when lungs were put into water, they floated, unlike the other organs. Um, the lungs of slaughtered animals. I hope.

Liver

Liver comes from the Old English lifere, liver, and before that the Proto Germanic librn. The origins are kind of murky, but it might come from the Proto Indo European leip, which could mean adhere or fat. But that’s not certain. Are livers usually fatty? I’m not really up on anatomy.

Spleen

Spleen showed up in the early fourteenth century and its origins aren’t Germanic but the usual Old French. It comes from the word esplen, which in turn comes from the classical Latin splen and Greek splen, both of which are just spleen. Spleen can be traced even further back to the Proto Indo European splegh, which sounds like the noise you make when you throw up but actually just means spleen. We’ve had a name for this particular organ for a long time.

Brain

Brain comes from the Old English braegen, brain, and Proto Germanic bragnam. There’s some contention about where it comes from before that. Some say it’s the Proto Indo European mregh-mno, which means skull or brain, but others say it’s the word bhragno, something broken. So it’s either a word that sounds nothing like it or a word that means nothing like it. Sure.

Stomach

Stomach showed up in the late fourteenth century with the -ch end and in the early fourteenth century as stomak. Why they had to change it, I don’t know. Anyway, before that it’s the Old French stomaque/estomac, stomach, and classical Latin stomachus, which could mean stomach or gullet, or even taste or inclination. Latin of course took the word from Greek, stomachos, which had a similar meaning and was taken from stoma, mouth. Because the mouth leads to the stomach, the Greeks named stomach after it. Which stuck all the way through English, even if stoma didn’t.

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

More Weird Searches

Why am I always able to find more of these? And why do I find them so amusing?

Honestly, if you don’t know how to get home I’m not sure the internet is going to help you. And how do I love thee?

How much does water weigh. Not a gallon of water like above query, which is something that can be solved. Just water, in general. It could be the weight of the smallest quantity of water, one molecule (~2.989*10^-23 grams) or all water everywhere (???).

I need a hero? Uh…I’m not really sure how to react to this. But I do need money.

Interphase is the time of rest before a cell divides. Clearly someone is looking up answers to their biology homework. Good luck finding out what happens when you die.

If you start talking about having powers, I can guarantee you a couple of black eyes.

And finally, not long ago, I wanted to go to Wikipedia to look up something inconsequential. So I begin typing the address in. And these are what auto-fills in.

I’d like to point out that I had just, just cleared my history so there was literally nothing for it to base these on. It just gives me Drug Test, something about encryption keys, Windows 8 (ugh), and a Czechoslovakian-Austrian-German millionaire. Okay.

It Follows

I can’t go anywhere without being followed by Veronica, my giant, fat cat.

It’s like that scary movie. Except real. And a cat. And she doesn’t want to kill me. Just be with me at all times.

Secret Origins: Z

Since it is the last month of the year, I thought it would be a good time to finally reveal the origins of the last letter of the (Latin) alphabet. I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for…five years?! Seriously?!!!

Z’s use in English is because of Anglo French, where it represented the “ts” sound, which is pretty close to how we say Z today. If you look at the alphabet gif (which is making its last appearance here, I guess), you’ll see that Z is actually between F and H. That’s because in the Greek alphabet, Zeta comes in between Epsilon and Eta, which are the symbolic origins of E, F and H. Z probably got stuck at the end of the alphabet because the Romans used it for translating Greek words, so they just added it as an afterthought.

But let’s go back to the gif. Between the Greek and Latin versions, there was Etruscan, where the symbol for the “dz” sound actually looked more like an I despite both Greek (which came before it) and Latin (which came after it) using Z. Although if you look at Z’s in ancient English, some of them do look awfully I like. Maybe the Z symbol was influenced by S, which could have a Z sound. But that’s totally guessing on my part. For all I know, the two have nothing to do with each other.

Now, Etruscan took their symbol from Greek, where it was a Z, but in the most ancient version of the Greek alphabet, it was that I so I guess the switch happened somewhere in Greek history. And before Greek, there was Phoenician, which again, was I. The name of it was zayin, which meant, get this, weapon. That’s the earliest known meaning attributed to the symbol as before that in Proto Sinaitic, their Z looks like an equal sign and has no known meaning. Is it the same as that I? Why did they change from I to Z anyway? Did the Phoenicians come up with Z being a weapon on their own? And why?

Ha ha, like anyone actually knows.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Alphabet Gif

Omniglot

Phoenicia.org

Ancient Scripts

Mysterious Etruscans

Medieval Writing

Evertype

Fordham University

Personality

So a while back, I stumbled across this personality quiz that I thought was amusing and I figured, hey, why not save this for a day when I can’t think up a post? And today is that day.

There are 64 questions about how you feel/act, mostly basic stuff like “You are always looking for opportunities” or “the more people you speak to the better you feel”. You answer from a strong yes to a strong no. It then rates you on introvert/extrovert, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. Me, I got strongly introvert, moderately sensing and thinking, and strongly judging. I guess that sounds about right.

I always wonder how accurate these things are. So why don’t you guys try it when you have a few minutes and see what you think. What kind of personality do you have? Does it match up with how you think of yourself?

Bells

December: the month where charities assume that by annoying you, they can get you to donate. Logic!

I really, really hate them. So much.

Language of Confusion: -Tain-ted Love, Reborn

Remember way back when I etymologized a bunch of words that ended with -tain? And I said there were a bunch that weren’t etymologically related to the others and I’d do them later? Well here. I finally got around to it.

Attain showed up in the early fourteenth century from ataign-, part of the Old French word ataindre, which has pretty much the same meaning ours does. Further back, it’s the Vulgar Latin attangere or classical Latin attingere, which means touch or reach. The at- part is from ad-, to, but the second part comes from the word tangere, touch, and the origin word for tangent. Apparently, it comes from the idea of “meeting at a point without intersecting”. Tangere can be traced even further back to the Proto Indo European tag, which is also touch. So basically, when you attain something, you’re touching it.

Certain showed up in the early fourteenth century, coming from the Old French certain, which meant pretty much the same thing. Before that, it was the Vulgar Latin certanus and classical Latin certus, also certain. This certus came from cretus, the past participle of cernere, separate or distinguish. Which is the origin word for discern, appropriately enough. And crisis. Which is a bit weirder.

Next, we’re going to look at fountain, which showed up in the early fifteenth century. It comes from the Old French fontaine and before that, the Medieval Latin fontana and classical Latin fontanus/fons, and yeah, all of those words just mean fountain. It comes from the Proto Indo European dhen, to flow. So yeah, it switched from a d to an f. I can’t even begin to fathom that one.

There are a few other -tain words, but the last one we’re going to look at today is curtain. It showed up in the early fourteenth century, from the Old French cortine, curtain. Before that, it was the Late Latin cortina. Which—and I’m not making this up—in classical Latin means cauldron or tripod and cortem, which means yard or enclosure. Apparently, for some reason, common Latin speakers used cortina as a replacement for the Greek word aulaia, curtain. The Greek word aule means courtyard, so I guess this made sense to the Romans. I don’t know. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: words are weird.

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

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Orbis Latinus

Encyclopaedia Britannica

December Goals

Well, it’s December. On one hand, Thanksgiving is over with for another year. On the other, Christmas is less than a month away.

Is it January yet?

November Goals

1. Keep writing! I’ve been so busy doing other stuff that it’s important that I don’t give up.

Yes, I have been doing this. I’ve had a lot going on, but I haven’t given up.

2. Work on my special secret project. Can’t tell you more about this one yet…

Yes, I did, but I still can’t talk about it and I don’t know where it’s going right now :P. Hopefully there will be answers soon.

3. Prepare for the nightmare known as Thanksgiving. <shudder>

…No comment.

Not bad. I wish I had more concrete goals to work on. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I could swing that…

December Goals

1. Look at one of my old projects and revise it.

2. Hopefully finish up with the secret project.

3. <sigh> Christmas…

Somehow I think goal number three would be a lot more fun if it wasn’t for two thirds of my family.

What are you up to this month? Any last minute 2015 goals you need to finish?