Spam Bingo

Here it is, my last comic of the year on the last day of the year! And it’s not really a comic, more like a joke. Spam is still ever present in our lives, and once I said it would be funny if there was Spam Bingo. So here it is.

The rules are simple: every time you get a spam message, you see if it falls into one of these categories. First person to hit them all wins all of the internet points. :P

Contrarily

The last etymology post of the year! So of course I have to do something different. Today I’m going to highlight contranyms, words that mean both one thing and the complete opposite, because the one thing that you should be learning from these posts is that words are stupid.

Peruse

Peruse means to read with thoroughness or care, like you would an article a medical journal that you were doing a paper on. It also means to scan or browse, like you would a tabloid while waiting in line at the grocery store. So it’s read carefully and glance at. So are you perusing this list or perusing it?

Dust

Yes, dust does have two contradictory meanings. Think about it: you can dust donuts with powdered sugar. And then when you spill it on the table, you can dust up the sugar. You can dust the dust.

Nonplussed

This one is kind of funny because it’s only recently that the word has come to mean the opposite. Originally, nonplussed meant to surprise/confuse someone so much they don’t know how to react. However over the past couple of decades in North America, it’s come to mean to not be disturbed by something at all (I grew up thinking that was what it meant because I never heard it in any other context). I guess we’re seeing a word become a contranym right before our eyes, and we still have no idea why.

Egregious

These days egregious means  extraordinarily bad, like Manos: The Hands of Fate is considered an egregious example of cinema. But! Once upon a time, it used to mean distinguished or outstanding, except people started using it ironically. So whatever you had to say about the change in definitions of nonplussed, people were probably saying it about egregious, and now everyone only uses it that way.

Chuffed

I had never even heard of chuffed before making this list, but it is indeed a contranym as it means both pleased and displeased. This one is all British, with the good chuffed coming from a word that meant “swollen with fat” and the bad one coming from a word that was “rude man”. And both of those words were “chuff”, so they were the same even back then and no one knows where they came from before that.

Reflections 2016

You know what? I don’t want to reflect on 2016. It was terrible. Like, beyond awful. Like, someone waking you up in the middle of the night by smacking you in the head with a hammer. No, wait. That’s not painful enough.

Ugh, this year can go and die.

Resolutions

1. Hopefully carve out time to write a new book!

Well, I started one. It’s only a fourth of the way done, but it’s better than nothing.

2. Keep updating the blog three times a week. I know this seems like an easy one since I’ve been doing that for years, but sometimes it seems like I’m out of time. So no matter what, keep blogging!

I did miss a week once. Because 2016 is just like being thrown off a cliff into a lake of boiling water.

3. Try to finish the horror story I started writing last year. Hopefully I can find the time!

I didn’t do this, because I couldn’t find the motivation to do it. If I don’t have fun writing it, I can’t imagine someone having fun reading it, so it’s probably for the best.

4. Maybe start a progress bar for my goals so I can see how far I’m getting.

Wow, I just straight up didn’t do this. I didn’t even remember it was a goal. Whoops?

5. Do the A-to-Z Challenge again! Which means I better get started on those posts.

Another success. It was definitely one of the more fun parts of the year.

6. Win a hundred million dollars in the lottery so I can just write for the rest of my life. This one might be tough.

I’m really mad that I didn’t make this goal. It’s totally unfair.

7. Read more. Just ‘cause why not?

Yes, I did. It was fun. I do wish that it was even more!

So that was 2016. It was way worse than the pretty font color I picked would indicate. It was like having your skin removed and replaced with a concentrated acid.

Ugh.

It Might Be Genetic

Christmas is tomorrow! And since it’s on a weekend, my mom will be around to do all the baking. You remember how it turned out when I did it.

Really, it’s surprising that anything survives to be put out for the guests.

Language of Confusion: -Ress

It’s the last etymology post of the year! I mean, because of course I’m doing something special for next week. Um, don’t expect anything super cool. I mean special in the sense that it’s different from the usual etymology posts. Don’t go getting your hopes up.

Anyway! This is for words that end in -ress that aren’t just feminized versions of words (like mistress or actress), and also ones that don’t end in -gress because those are a whole other post by themselves.

Fortress

Fortress first showed up in the early fourteenth century, coming from the Old French forteresse/forterece, which pretty much means fortress. It comes from the Medieval Latin fortalitia (which is where we got the R in fortress…somehow) and classical Latin fortis, which means strong and of course is the origin word for fort. The -ess part is French, but it actually comes from Latin as well, where it’s -itia. Even suffixes have their origins.

Distress

I think distress be one of the words that has an origin that I least expect. It showed up in the late thirteenth century as a noun and a century later as a verb. It comes from the Old French destresse, which is from the Vulgar Latin districtia, from the classical Latin districtus and its verb form distringere. And you’re probably going, wow, that districtus looks a lot like district, but there’s no way they can be related. Yes. Yes they are. That’s the origin word of district, too. Disgringere actually means to draw apart or hinder, with the dis- meaning apart and stringere, draw, the origin word for strain. Really. At least the draw apart kind of makes sense for district but distress? Apparently it’s because of Medieval Latin, where it somehow became compel or coerce. No explanation as to why it changed, though.

Caress

Caress is fairly recent, showing up in the mid seventeenth century, coming from the French caresse, which, you know, means caress. It’s from either the verb caresser or the Italian carezza, also just caress because no one’s trying to be original here. The caress words come from the classical Latin carus, expensive. That word can be traced to the Proto Indo European ka-, like or desire. The origin word for many words, including whore. You can’t make this stuff up.

Address

Address showed up in the early fourteenth century as a verb and a century later as a noun. It originally meant guide, aim, or direct, coming from the Old French adrecier, go straight toward, set right, or direct. It’s from the Vulgar Latin addirectiare, straighten, a mix of ad-, to, and the classical Latin directus, direct. And that’s the origin word for dress, too. Apparently it means clothing because it went from “make straight” to “decorate” to “put on clothes”. I…I don’t know. My brain hurts.

Duress

Duress showed up in the early fourteenth century from the Old French duress and classical Latin duritia (hardness) and durus (hard), which is where endure comes from. The -ess part comes from the same place as the -ess in fortress. Wow, one without a crazy backstory. Whew.

Tl;dr: -ress words are weird. Like even for words 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

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Encyclopaedia Britannica

'Tis The Season (To Slack Off)

The  holiday season is fast approaching and I’m totally busy. Mostly with setting up my new laptop, which for some reason won’t let me scroll in Word which is...kind of an issue.

So here’s a Christmas quiz that Liz turned me onto to keep you occupied while I try to figure out how to stop this stupid thing from being stupid. Anyway, have a good end of the year! Once 2016 is dead it can never come back!

Threats Are The Only Thing It Understands

Remember when I talked about how the L key in my computer was only working sporadically? Well, it’s still an issue.

Still getting a new one, though.

Language of Confusion: Feelings of Joy

Happy words! Because…well, joy is mentioned a lot this time of year, I guess. So here we go.

Happy

Happy first showed up in the late fourteenth century, where it meant lucky—maybe it changed because if you’re lucky, you’re probably happy. It’s actually a mix of the word hap (more on that in a second) and the suffix -y, which actually means “full of or characterized by” like hearty or funny. So this means that happy means full of hap. But what’s hap? I didn’t even know it was a word! But it is, having shown up in the early thirteenth century meaning chance, fortune, or fate. It comes from the Old Norse happ, good luck, Proto Germanic hap, and Proto Indo European kob-, to suit/fit or succeed. Hap basically means luck (generally good), but it also has a verb version that means to come to pass. Which is what gave us happen. And happenstance. And perhaps.

Joy

Joy showed up in the early thirteenth century, coming from the Old French joie, pleasure, and classical Latin gaudia and its singular gaudium, which both just mean joy or pleasure. They come from the verb guadere, rejoice, which can be traced even further back to the Proto Indo European gau, also rejoice. That also might be where gaudy comes from, by the way.

Glad

Glad comes from the Old English glaed, which could mean happy, bright,or brilliant (those last two definitions are going seem a lot more significant in a few seconds). Glaed comes from the Proto Germanic glada-, which is from the Proto Indo European ghel-, shine. The origin word for glass, gold, and yellow. So because things are figuratively bright when you’re glad, it comes from the word for shine.

Cheer

Cheer first showed up in the early thirteenth century meaning, get this, the face, as in expressing emotion. It comes from the Anglo French chere, the face, and Old French chiere, face or expression. Before that it was cara in Late Latin (also face), which probably comes from the Greek kara, which means head or skull. That’s actually from the Proto Indo European root ker-, head or horn—it’s literally the origin word for horn. So because your face is on your head and your expressions are on your face…you get cheer? Is that how it works?

tl;dr: Happy 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

Fordham University

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Orbis Latinus

Vocab Test

Several months ago I came across a vocabulary test that I thought was fun but then I saw it on two other blogs before I could post it so I decided to wait a while. And now that it’s almost the end of the year and I can’t think of anything else, here it is!

The rules are pretty basic. You pick a language and then it shows you a word, and you pick from a set of four either the synonym or antonym of the word. It’s easy at first, but as it goes on, it starts throwing more and more obscure words at you. I tried to break them down and piece them together from the roots I’ve learned over years of etymology posts. Of course, considering how weird some of those etymologies are, I could have gotten them completely backwards.

Still, I did pretty well, getting in the 0.01th percentile, with a vocabulary of 30325. Big surprise, right? The reader/writer did super well! Shocking! I’m not actually sure how it was ranked. I guess that’s supposed to be 30325 words. It’s not exactly a scientific test :P.

How’s your vocabulary? Did you do well on the test? Any words that you had never heard of before?

I Maintain That It Wasn’t My Fault

Another almost true story.

I’m all for reusing containers, but for the love of god, mark them because mashed potatoes really look like cookie dough ice cream and then you’re in for a world of disappointment. Ugh.

Lost In Translation: June

Time for another month! At the rate I’m going, I’ll probably get to July sometime around next July.

June showed up as a word in the early fourteenth century—before that, the mont still existed, but in Old English it was liðe se ærra, which means something like “earlier mildness”. Which honestly makes more sense as a name, but maybe they just wanted something that was faster to spell. When people renamed the month, it could appear as June, Juin, or Iun, because J was originally the Y sound and the symbol came from I, and people were actually still using Iune up until the seventeenth century.

The word June comes from the classical Latin Iunius or Iunius mensis, which is just the month of June. Iunius is probably short for Iunonius, sacred to Juno, the Roman queen of the gods (kind of equivalent to the Greek Hera). So yeah, she got her own month. However there’s also a theory that May and June actually come from “majors” and “juniors”, referring to old and young men, respectively. Because of course they would need entire months dedicated to themselves.

Yeah, I prefer them being named after goddesses. Or the number of times a day you can milk a cow, like May used to be.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Omniglot

Encyclopedia Mythica

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

December Goals

Well, it’s December. Just one month left of 2016 and then it’s gone and most importantly, it can’t come back.

So let’s see how I did on my November goals.

November Goals

1. Write 10,000 words for new story idea. I don’t know if I’ll get there, but I want to aim high. So when I inevitably fail I can wallow in that much more misery.

I…actually did this. I got ten thousand words. Even though I missed more than a week of writing.

2. Do a bunch of boring adult crap like raking the pine needles and stuff. I hate being an adult.

I did this too. Damn pine needles.

3. Oh god. Thanksgiving is this month. Please, no. Not that. Anything but that.

Hey, it wasn’t terrible! Considering how bad 2016 was, this is the most surprising thing of all.

Wow, successful month. You’d almost not believe the world was going to end.

Anyway, now for this month:

December Goals

1. Do 10,000 more words in the WIP. If I was able to do it last month, I better be able to do it now.

2. Maybe update my blog design. It’s been YEARS.

3. Christmas. AAAAAAAAAAGH.

Okay, so that’s the plan. Let’s see how much it can go awry! So what are you up to this month?

The Last Place You Want To Look

Veronica, in her insistence on being with me at all times, will often lie on things that she’s not supposed to. Usually it’s my glasses.

Turns out that really loud purring drowns out the sound of a text coming in. Of course, it’s loud enough to drown out most things…

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part IV

Fourth week now. Let’s hope we can actually finish it this time.

First, deport showed up in the late fifteenth century meaning…to behave. I can’t even wrap my head around that. The other deport, like you would a person, didn’t show up until the mid seventeenth century! And they actually have slightly different origins. That weird deport comes from the Old French deporter, which could mean behave or things like be patient, amuse, delay, treat kindly, and take sexual pleasure with. Seriously, what the hell. Like the other -port words it comes from the classical Latin portare, carry, and the de- prefix means from or off. No, that makes no sense. It makes less than no sense. The other deport—the one we still use—came to us from Modern French, where it was déporter, carry off (or, you know, deport), and before that the classical Latin deportare, transport. Now I want to take the other deport and yell at it, “See?! This is how an etymology is supposed to go!!”

Ahem. Speaking of transport, it showed up in the late fourteenth century coming from the Old French transporter and classical Latin transportare, which is just transport. The trans- part means across, so it’s carry across. It’s nice to read something that doesn’t make me want to scramble my brains with an ice pick. Deport. PS., teleport didn’t show up until 1940 and is actually tele- (far off) plus transport. I’m assuming sci-fi has something to do with that.

Support showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French supporter and classical Latin (I’m sure you can guess it) supportare, or support. Support’s original definition was things like hold up or sustain, and it’s a mix of the prefix sub-, up from under, and portare, carry. So it’s to carry up from under, which makes sense. I think.

Finally today, we’re going to do some quick etymologies of the final port words. Passport is from the sixteenth century, coming from the Middle French passeport, authorization to pass through a port. It’s literally pass + the ship port. Next, purport showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Anglo French purport and Old French porport/purporter, contents, or convey. That’s a combination of pur-, which is basically por- or pro- and means forth, and porter, which of course comes from portare. Purport is to carry forth. Lastly there’s comport, which showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French comporter, endure or behave. It’s from the Latin comportare, which could mean things like transport or bring together. That last one makes sense since com- means together, so it’s carry together. Not that we use comport much these days…

TL;DR: If you ever want to etymologize the word port for your blog, it’s going to take way longer than you think.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Fordham University

We’re So Proud

Thanksgiving…wasn’t terrible? I guess it’s all being saved up for Christmas. Ugh, Christmas is coming.

But I did see my cousins, who are pretty cool. One of them showed me a sketch she did as a part of her project for her senior year of college, where she plays the "fun cop".

Her mother thought it was particularly hilarious, and makes up about a third of those views there. She might be a little biased, but I still really enjoyed it. Fun fact: every parent in the room said that better not be real coke, to which she reminded them she couldn’t afford it.

Thanksgiving Spam 3

I’m sure I’m still exhausted from Thanksgiving. You know the drill.

Well, I can’t argue with the fact that my blog is quality writing.

Damn it, I don’t have a province. I was this close to getting five million dollars!

I really hope you’re doing something about your kid’s gym teacher being a pedophile because seriously, what the hell.

Thanksgiving Spam 2

Today is Thanksgiving here and I still don’t feel like working! So spam.

That must have been one hell of a background check because I didn’t know I had a daughter.

Not really sure what this one is trying to say. I’d really like to know what “proper drainage” means in regards to blogging.

I’d kind of like to know why and how this person knows that brain washing is faster.

Thanksgiving Spam 1

It’s Thanksgiving week in the US and I don’t feel like working! So here’s some spam, from way back when I first started the Spamfiles!

One of my very first posts! The answer to this query is still “By conning people into thinking they can make $94,218 blogging”.

Uh-oh, you guys shouldn’t be looking at this! It’s legally privileged!

…You come into my house and this is how you speak to me? What did I do to deserve this disrespect?

Complications

My mom is usually in charge of the day before Thanksgiving baking, but for the first time that I remember, she has to work that day. So obviously she expects me to come over and do it, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea…

I should not be put in charge of sweets.

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part III

Okay, let’s look at words that use port as a suffix, shall we? This shouldn’t take too long, right?

Report first showed up in the late fourteenth century as a verb then a noun. Now, it has lots of meanings these days, from the results of something to an assignment and also…a loud noise. Um, no, I don’t know why. But all those definitions didn’t come until the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Before that, it just meant something you told to someone. The noun comes from the Old French report while the verb is from reporter, which in turn comes from the classical Latin reportare, to (figuratively) carry back…like you would with news, I suppose. The re- is the back part, while portare, as we learned two weeks ago when looking at portal, literally means carry. So basically, carry back went from literal to figurative, and from there to even more crazy definitions.

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering if rapport is related to report. And it is! But not as much as you might think. It showed up in the seventeenth century from the French (Modern French, that is) rapport/rapporter, which actually means report. The r comes from re- and means again and the apporter means to bring. Apportare comes from Latin, where it means bring and is actually a combo word itself! The a comes from ad-, to, and the rest is portare, which as we all know means carry. To carry back to…I guess that’s a good way to describe having a rapport with someone.

Next we’re looking at import, and related to it, important. Import showed up first in the early fifteenth century while important showed up a little later in the mid sixteenth century. These days, import is more commonly used to describe goods imported from elsewhere, but originally it was closer to important in definition. Which is funny since it comes from the classical Latin importare, which means bring in from abroad (I guess they used it to mean something else and then started using the original definition anyway). Importare is a mix of the prefix in-, into, and portare, carry. So, carry into. Makes sense, at least for the imported goods definition. Important is mostly the same, but it actually came to us by way of the Middle French important and Medieval Latin importantem, which does have the significant definition. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s where import got its other definition, although who knows who gave it that in the first place.

Since we did import, you’re probably wondering about export, too. It showed up in the early seventeenth century meaning carrying something out. It comes from the classical Latin exportare, export, which is a combination of ex-, away, and portare. Carry away. No big surprises here.

And…wow, this post is getting long and I have a lot of words left. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is going to have to go into an unprecedented fourth week. And of course next week is Thanksgiving, which means I’m going to be super busy and throwing up filler posts so you’ll have to wait until the week after that for the thrilling conclusion.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Actually Writing

You know, instead of Still Writing (for the definition of still that means stopped :P). I’ve been doing actual writing! Not editing old drafts, not fragments of ideas. Writing! And it’s pretty awesome.

I really, really like this story. Of course, if you’re writing something you don’t like, you’re doing it wrong. But still! I can’t remember the last time I felt so positively about an idea. And it hasn’t gone away in like ten seconds.

I haven’t been able to write as much as I’d like because of reasons, but it’s a start, and I’m hoping to get back to it soon. Barring any more unforeseen catastrophes. Which 2016 has made abundantly clear is going to happen a lot.

But there’s something good going on at least. Anyway, next week is Thanksgiving here (which, historically, has definitely been a source of catastrophes...ugh!), so I’m not going to be around as much. I think I’m going to do a week of Spamfiles posts.

I can sense your excitement from here.

Now I Need Aspirin

I hate doing things for my mom. Something like this always happens.

Shortly after this exchange I realized I had a headache, too. Coincidentally.

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part II

Last week, we looked at just pain port. Now let’s look at words that begin with port and see if they’re related! Ha ha, they’re not.

Portion showed up in the early fourteenth century, coming from the Old French porcion and classical Latin portionem, share. It’s actually related to the phrase pro portione, which, of course, is where we get proportion. Pro- means for here and the rest comes from partio, division. That word is related to the origin word for part. But not port.

Now let’s look at portent and portend. Portent first showed up in the mid sixteenth century while portend showed up in the early fifteenth century. Portent comes from the Middle French portent and classical Latin portentum, portent. Portend comes right from the Latin portendere, which means foretell and is the verb form of portentum. Portendere is actually a mix of the prefix pro-, forward, and tendere, to tend to or stretch (and the origin word of tenet). In other words, it’s also not related to port at all. Just another coincidence!

Portray showed up in the mid thirteenth century meaning draw or paint—so yeah, that’s where portrait originates too. It comes from the Anglo French purtraire and Old French portraire, which also means draw or paint. The word was first put together in French, por- + -traire. Both words come from Latin, por- from pro- (third time now! This time it means forth again) and traire is from trahere, pull. Pull? Really?

So none of those port words are related to port. Portable is, and it actually still has the Latin meaning of portrare/to carry. But there is one word that’s related to port and that is…Porch.

Seriously. Porch. It comes from the Old French porche and classical Latin porticus, which meant things like porch or gallery. That word comes from porta, which, as we learned last week, means gate. So it does make sense when you learn the history of it, but still. Weird.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Fordham University

The Death of Tweetdeck, Part 3

Remember how months and months ago I was looking for a replacement for Tweetdeck because they discontinued a desktop app? And I found a new one, but it kept crashing my touchpad driver so I stopped using it? And I really didn’t like the one I got to replace it because it only showed you a fixed number of tweets and just kind of sucked in general? Any of this ringing a bell?

Anyway, I got really sick of the replacement and started looking for yet another replacement. And I found one! And it’s actually really good!

It’s called Tweeten and let me break it down for you…

Pros

---Infinite scrolling for your tweets. I can’t believe there’s apps where you can’t!

---You can actually see pictures in tweets, which you couldn’t in Yoono.

---Fairly easy to figure out, especially if you remember how Tweetdeck worked.

Cons

---Can only update to Twitter, not any other platforms (if that’s really what you want).

---Not always intuitive. I don’t want to admit how long it took me to realize that you can just hit N to bring up a window to type your tweet, just like in Tweetdeck.

---Can’t hit enter to tweet. Have to it Ctrl + Enter. Like some kind of savage.

TL;DR: It’s basically a clone of Tweetdeck, and that’s why you should use it if you want it for your desktop. So yeah. Go with this. The only other con I have is that it took me so long to find it.

Laundry Day

Remember Peaches? The really cute cat who likes to sit in the laundry basket? Well, the only thing she likes better than an empty basket is a full one.

It’s like she has the magic ability to appear in any basket that I haven’t looked at for five seconds. Especially if it’s full of clean clothes.

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part I

Yes, another multi parter! There’s actually a ton of words that are port related. Way more than I thought. It’s actually going to take three posts for me to get through them all. So let’s start by looking at just plain port, which has so many versions that it’s a whole posts worth itself.

The version of port that means where ships go comes from the Old English port which means…port. Okay, no surprises there. That in turn comes from the classical Latin portus, which also (big shock) means port, and even earlier it was the Proto Indo European prtu-, a passage, and per-, to lead or pass over. And speaking of ships, the left side of one is also called port, probably just to be confusing. Apparently it was named after, and I quote, “the side facing the harbor” when the ship is docked. (-.-) Before the mid-sixteenth century, they used larboard, the opposite of starboard, instead.

The port that means portal also comes from per-, through a similar yet distinct lineage. It also used to be port in Old English, then it was the Old French porte and classical Latin porta, gate. Port also has the definition of carry attached to it, coming from the Middle French porter and classical Latin portrare, to carry. And yeah, that’s related to portus and porta.

The port that’s an alcoholic beverage has a kind of weird relationship to the others. It’s short for Oporto (or Porto), a city in Portugal which shipped the drink. And that Porto comes from port. As does the first part of Portugal. Because this ouroboros just keeps eating itself.

TL;DR: All versions of port started out as the same word, became something different, then became the same word again because language is dumb.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Old English-English Dictionary

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

University of Ottawa, Canada

November Goals

Sigh…Halloween is over. Well, I remembered on time this month, so that’s something. Let’s see how I did…

October Goals

1. Update my etymology list so I don’t ignore it for a year and then have a huge amount to put in.

Hey, I did this! It’s much easier when I don’t leave it for an entire year.

2. Find some time to write! It’s going to be a busy month…

I didn’t find as much time as I would like, but I did think up a new story idea that I just love, so that’s pretty awesome.

3. HALLOWEEN!

I had lots of Halloween fun, so this is definitely checked off : ).

Did pretty good this month. I feel accomplished. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t last long.

November Goals

1. Write 10,000 words for new story idea. I don’t know if I’ll get there, but I want to aim high. So when I inevitably fail I can wallow in that much more misery.

2. Do a bunch of boring adult crap like raking the pine needles and stuff. I hate being an adult.

3. Oh god. Thanksgiving is this month. Please, no. Not that. Anything but that.

This month is going to be very, very busy. I’m not looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and fall into a coma and not wake up until 2017. Anyway, what are you up to this month?

Evil Eye

I swear, my mom gets the weirdest illnesses…

I’m just glad she didn’t get me sick this time. I’ve had enough eye problems this year, thank you.

Language of Confusion: Words That Hurt

I’m still on the morbid etymology kick. What can I say? It’s October.

Death

Death comes from the Old English deað, which is just death with a thorn in for the th sound. It comes from the Proto Germanic dauthuz and Proto Indo European dheu-, to die. Which is appropriate, as that’s where die came from, by way of the Proto Germanic dawjan. PS, the die that is the plural of dice is not even remotely related, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Kill

Kill showed up in the early thirteenth century as a word for strike or hit. It didn’t mean to death-ify someone until a century later! Unless it comes from the Old English word cwellan, which means to kill or murder. I mean, that would make sense, but it’s one of those ones that they aren’t sure of. What they are sure of however is that cwellen is the origin word for quell though. Because you know that makes so much sense.

Hurt

Hurt also showed up in the early thirteenth century not just meaning to injure but also to bump/knock into. Sure. Why not. It comes from the Old French hurter, ram or strike, so apparently it was English that switched things up. Its earlier origins are less certain. It would make sense if it came from the Frankish hurt, which means ram, but it might be Celtic in origin, too. Basically, it’s a really hard to pin down word.

Agony

Another cheery entry! Agony first showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning only mental suffering. It comes from the Old French agonie/agoine, anguish or terror, and Late Latin agonia, which is just taken from the Greek agonia, anguish. It originally meant a mental struggle for victory or a struggle for victory in the games, coming from agon, which could mean struggle or game. Well, I guess struggling to win a game is agony…Or maybe that’s just for kids who were bad at Physical Education.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Old English-English Dictionary

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

Orbis Latinus

Short And Scary

So I’ve done games and comics, how about some scary short films now? Yes! Let’s do that!

The Smiling Man

This one has the distinction of being both a short story and a short film, about a young man having a strange encounter while out walking late at night.

Play With Me

A short cartoon about a boy who wants to play outside. Prepare to be horrified.

Cargo

A man will do anything to save his baby daughter during a zombie apocalypse.

Metalosis Maligna

A fake documentary about a fake disease is really scary.

I am so bummed that Halloween month is going to be over next week. Then it’s just November. Ugh. Why can’t we have October all year?

Wait, no. October and my birthday all year.

Desperation

The cricket problem still hasn’t let up. They’re quiet one night and then the next night it’s like a whole family of them has moved in. I’m starting to think I’ll have to resort to drastic measures…

You know how I feel about the spiders. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Language of Confusion: Grave Situations, Part III

Wow. I’ve been talking about death a lot lately. Welp, here’s more!

Corpse

Corpse has kind of an unusual story. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century. Originally the P was silent and it didn’t used to have an E at the end. Kind of like the word corps. Which happens to be where corpse comes from. Really. Corps showed up in the late thirteenth century—before that it was cors, an old word for body. It comes from the Old French cors, body/person/corpse, and classical Latin corpus, also body (it’s where corporeal comes from, obvs). And they used to pronounce the P, so we can blame French for getting rid of it for some dumb reason. Although I think the silent S might be on us.

Cadaver

Cadaver first showed up in the early sixteenth century from the classical Latin cadaver, which means…cadaver. Okay, not much imagination in this one. It’s origins before that are unclear, but it’s thought to come from cadere, fall, which kind of makes sense since a dead body is a fallen one. So we finally got one that’s not totally frigging weird and it only took eight words.

Carcass

Wow. We have a lot of words for dead body. Carcass showed up in the late thirteenth century from the Anglo French carcois. Before that it’s the Old French charcois (roughly the same meaning) and Anglo Latin (that’s the first time I’ve mentioned that language on this blog) carcosium, dead body. So yeah. This one just kind of popped up from nowhere.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Creepy Comics

Back to scary stuff! I’ve already told you about some creepy games, so now it’s time to look at some creepy comics. There’s some pretty good ones out there!

First of all, Emily Carroll is really the best when it comes to horror related comics. Most of them are fairly quick reads, and more on the psychological end of the horror spectrum. His Face All Red is very popular, and I really like Margot’s Room, where you click on the different pieces of the first image to read the different parts of the story. Out Of Skin is full of freaky imagery, and The Groom is pretty intense. My personal favorite is probably Some Other Animal’s Meat which is just so unsettling…well, read it, you’ll see.

I also really like The Dreaded Question by Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon, and I have a feeling other writers will like it, too. It’s very creepy and gothic, and the ending is just perfect. Don’t you wish writing was that easy? ; )

And hey, if you want to check out something from Asia, check out the Korean comic The Bongcheon-Dong Ghost and prepare to never sleep again. It’s translated into English, so don’t worry. About that, anyway. Just watch out for the jumpscare.

So that’s it for this week. What did you think? Are there any scary comics you enjoy?

I May Need To Burn The House Down

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably gotten bored of my constant complaining about the crickets in my house being so loud that they keep me awake at night. It’s pretty awful. Both the crickets and the fact that I won’t shut up about them. But they’re just SO LOUD. Definitely a horror story if I’ve ever heard one.

I don’t remember them being this bad last year. It’s like they’ve all moved into my walls and want to drive me insane. They’re conspiring together. Plotting.

…I haven’t slept in days.

Language of Confusion: Grave Situations, Part II

More death related stuff! Fun!

Coffin

Coffin showed up in the early fourteenth century, where it meant a chest or something that held valuables. It comes from the Old French cofin, which meant sarcophagus or basket (or coffer, actually), and before that the classical Latin cophinus, basket. So yeah, coffin used to mean a basket until the sixteenth century. Also, not making this up, it once meant a pie crust. This is just gold.

Cemetery

Cemetery first showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French cimetiere, graveyard. Before that it was the Late Latin coemeterium and Greek koimeterion, cemeteries, which itself is actually from koiman or keimai, put to sleep or lie down. That word in turn comes from the Proto Indo European kei-, rest, lie, or bed. That kei happens to be part of tons of words, by the way, meaning that cemetery is a distant relative of hide, city, and…the Hindu god Shiva?! What?!

Tomb

Next on our list is tomb, which showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Anglo French tumbe and Old French tombe. That of course comes from the Late Latin tumba and (again) Greek tymbos, which is just tomb. The what-the-hell part of this one also comes from the Proto Indo European. Tymbos comes from the root word teue-, swell. Which is somehow the origin word for thigh.

Mausoleum

Mausoleum showed up in the mid sixteenth century meaning “magnificent tomb”. It comes from the classical Latin mausoleum which means mausoleum. Okay, I’ll give you a minute to wrap your head around that before we continue. Anyway, that word is traced to the Greek (because all grave related words have to be apparently) Mausoleion, which means mausoleum but is also the name of a tomb built for a guy named Mausolos. So because of some guy’s name we have mausoleum.

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

Fordham University

Orbis Latinus

October Goals

You might be noticing that this is going up a week late. That’s because in my excitement over it being Halloween month, I completely forgot to do my goals post. No exaggeration. I didn’t realize until last Tuesday, well after my scheduled post went up.

Oh well! I guess the scary thing for today will be that I’m getting old and forgetful.

September Goals

1. Get back into the grind. Ugh.

UGHHHHHHHHHH.

2. Look through some of my old stories and see if they need any work done.

Hey, I did this. And found out that one of my stories that I really liked was gone. So that kind of sucked.

3. Try to come up with a brand new idea for a story. It’s been a while…

This one I completely failed. I just didn’t have any inspiration! I’ve had a couple ideas for old works, though, so that’s a minor victory.

Kind of a meh month. I’m still really disappointed about that story missing!

October Goals

1. Update my etymology list so I don’t ignore it for a year and then have a huge amount to put in.

2. Find some time to write! It’s going to be a busy month…

3. HALLOWEEN!

So that’s the plan. It’s going to be a fairly busy month, so hopefully I’ll be able to find time to write. And what are you up to this month? Anything fun or interesting?

Writer’s Nightmare

Recently, I’ve been having a little problem when I’ve write…

I was able to fix it thankfully, but what a bizarre problem to have. But clearly the idea that this could have been permanent is far more terrifying than any ghost story could ever be.

Language of Confusion: Grave Situations, Part I

Well, it’s hard to make etymology scary. The best I can do is etymologize scary things. That’s almost like being scary, right?

Maybe not. Anyway, this week: disposing of the body.

Grave

Grave had more than one definition of course. You’d think they’d all be related, but they’re not. You know the serious grave? Yeah. Not related to a dead body grave. Unlike engraved. I’m not kidding. Dead body grave comes from the Old English graef, grave, which is from the Proto Germanic graban and Proto Indo European grebh, dig or scrape. Apparently because you scrape dirt out of the ground for a grave and also scrape when you engrave. Sure. The serious grave on the other hand comes from the Middle French grave and classical Latin gravis, serious, and before that the Proto Indo European gwere-, heavy. Being the same as grave is just a coincidence.

Bury

Maybe this one will make sense. Bury comes from the Old English byrgan, which means bury or hide. You might be wondering how it got from byrgan to bury—it’s because Y used to have the oo sound. While we don’t say “boory” (although that’s a good spelling for this month), it’s a lot easier to see how it got from that to bury. As for the g…G has always been stupid. Don’t get me started on G. Anyway, before it was byrgan, it was just the Proto Indo European bhergh-, hide or protect. Well, burying something is hiding it, I guess I can declare this one not-stupid. Mostly.

Cremation

Cremation showed up in the 1620s, while cremate didn’t appear until 1874—it’s practically a baby. It came from the classical Latin cremationem, which is obviously cremation, and cremare, to burn. It can be traced even further back to the Proto Indo European krem-/ker-, heat or fire. It’s actually the origin word for Carbon, by the way.

I guess that’s it for this week. Don’t worry. More grave related stuff next week!

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Old English-English Dictionary

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

University of Ottawa, Canada