Lump

I have two cats with medium/long hair, which means that if they aren’t brushed a lot, they tend to get mats in their fur. For one cat, this is easy as the only thing she likes better than food is attention and brushing is attention. But as for the other…not so much.

Seriously, I may have to change her name from Peaches to Lump.

Language of Confusion: -Tect

This week, I happened to look at the word protect and wondered what was up with that so here we go.

Protect showed up in the mid fifteenth century, coming from the classical Latin protectus, which is just protection. Which is kind of ironic as protection (which showed up in the mid fourteenth century) comes from protegere, to protect. Although protection did actually come to us via the Old French proteccion and Late Latin protectionem. If you want a word that kept the g in it, look at protégé. Of course, there’s a lot more than that to the protect story. Protegere is a mix of pro-, in front and tegere, to cover. To cover in front of…yeah, that sounds like protect.

There’s also detect, which showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin detectus, disclose. That happens to be the past participle of detegere, discover, a mix of de-, un or off, and tegere. So it’s to uncover…wow, it always surprises me when it makes sense.

But wait! There’s more! Tegere can be traced to the Proto Indo European (s)teg-, to cover with a roof. And that s being in there is kind of significant because it gave us the Greek word stegos, roof. Which you might recognize as the front half of stegosaurus.

It’s a good etymology day when it leads back to dinosaurs.

PS. Neither architect nor tectonic are related to the above. But they are related to texture!

Not as cool as the stegosaurus thing.

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

Orbis Latinus

Colors

Hey, I have something cool for you today! It’s another one of those random tests I found that’s supposed to tell you everything about yourself. Normally I don’t believe in that sort of thing. But I found this one to be weirdly accurate.

Check out the Color Oracle. You organize colors with the top row as the ones you like the most and the bottom as the ones you hate. Then it tells you what’s important to you and what’s bothering you based on what colors you pick.

Anyway, I thought it was really fun. You should try it. Do you think it was accurate? Did it tell you anything interesting?

PS: Just one month until my birthday! Let the partying commence!!!

Five Seconds Later

Why does summer have to be so hot? And also buggy, but primarily hot?

I’ll wake up in the morning and be like, “Oh, it’s not so bad out!”

It never lasts long.

Lost In Translation: May

Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve done one of these! I was actually planning on doing the May origins back in (appropriately enough) May, but then I don’t know what happened. I just totally forgot about it.

Oh well! Here it is!

First of all, May the month isn’t related to may the word. Not even a little. The month first showed up in the early twelfth century from the Old French mai and classical Latin Majjus/Maius mensis. It’s thought to have come from the goddess Maia. Actually, there are two Maias, a Greek one that’s one of the Pleiades and a Roman one that’s the goddess of growth and spring, and over the years as Greek and Roman culture combined so did the two goddess. Or it might be from Maiesta, the Roman goddess of honor and reverence. Because things just weren’t confusing enough.

Now, before there was May in English, we obviously had to have another name for the fifth month. May used to be called Þrimilic, which would be pronounced “thrimilke”. Or…three milk. Nope, not making it up. May used to be called Three Milk, because apparently May used to be the only month where you could milk cows three times a day.

Come on. That’s way better than naming it for some goddess.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Omniglot [http://omniglot.com/index.htm]

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Encyclopedia Mythica

Dictionary.com

Old English-English Dictionary

From the Spamfiles

Spam! Yay! I don’t have to think up a post!

Maybe don’t buy a dissertation from someone who says “and this thing I found in you post”.

…Pot without the THC defeats the purpose of pot.

Celebrities’ secrets to weight loss! It turns out, it’s really easy. Just have millions of dollars to pay for doctors and nutritionists.

The fact that they call themselves a “network” instead of a bank fills me with misgivings.

Jet Huang should be the name of a secret agent. I may have to start using it as my go-to alias.

And here we have another entry for our “Things a serial killer would say” list. Which is entirely too long as it is.

And that’s it for the really funny ones. I have to say, there’s been quite a drought of spam in my spam folder. Kind of disappointing. I mean, what else am I going to make fun of?

Laundry

Another exciting adventure. This happened when I was doing the laundry…

As it turns out, it was quite easy.

Language of Confusion: Dict-, Part III

Part three! We’re done!

Contradict didn’t show up until the late sixteenth century, but contradiction showed up way back in the late fourteenth century. Contradict comes from the classical Latin contradictus, while contradiction is from contradictionem, opposition. Both come from the word contradicere, reply or contradict. Contra means against, and dicere is say, so it’s literally say against. Which makes sense! It’s a miracle!

And now for a word that’s already a noun. Verdict showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the Middle English verdit, which was just verdict. Before that it was the Anglo French verdit, which could be testimony or judgment. Now, this word was actually created in French, not Latin. The ver- is from the Old French word for true (it’s where we get very), while the dit is the past participle of dire, which means say in French all the way up to today. But we can’t completely discount Latin, as dire is from dicere, and ver- can be traced to it, too. Plus Medieval Latin has the word verdictum, which also means verdict, so there’s clearly more than a little influence there. At least this time when we copied the Latin spelling for English we decided to say the C. Indict.

Addict seems like a weird word to be related to the others, but, well, it is. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century, like most of the others, coming from the classical Latin addictus, addicted, and addicere, which had meanings like deliver, yield, devote, and betray. Wow, that’s a complicated word. It’s a combination of ad-, to, and of course dicere, say, meaning this word is to say to. Which doesn’t really sound like addict. Apparently, it’s had a lot of different definitions over the years, in English as well as Latin. It used to have meanings like allot and devoted before it was what we know it as. I guess someone who’s really devoted to something is an addict…

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Encyclopaedia Britannica

University of Texas at Arlington

Fordham University

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Mid-Year Check In

Oh boy, am I not looking forward to this. See, back in January I made resolutions for the year. And now that year is more than half done. Seriously? How did that happen? It should be March, April tops. Not frigging July.

Resolutions 2016

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

Well, no, but that’s not as much my fault as it is there not being enough time. I really need to move into a black hole so time will pass slower.

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 kind of failed this since I did take that brief hiatus, but I had a damn good reason, so I guess it’s all right.

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

I’ve been trying, but I don’t have the passion for it that I once did. Maybe that will change in the next six months…

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

Okay, I’m going to be honest here: I have no idea how to do this. I’m not that savvy when it comes to programing and have literally no clue how to get something like this.

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

Hey, one I did!

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.

And one I didn’t. Unfortunately.

7. Read more. Just ‘cause why not?

Yes! Although I could read even more!

Okay, so I haven’t been doing that terrible (let’s hear it for realistic goals!), but I could be doing better, too. But sadly, writing is lower on my priorities list than I’d like right now. Sigh…

I could really use that lottery money about now.

So how are you doing now that 2016 is more than half over? Anything you want to do but haven’t been able to? Or need to do but don’t want to?

Lord of the Flies

I only wish this wasn’t a true story.

I have no idea what was causing them to appear, just that the largest congregation seemed to be the wall behind the television. Frankly, I don’t want to know more.

Language of Confusion: Dict-, Part II

This is part two of the three part series. And I mean it this time: no laughing!

Edict showed up in the late fifteenth century, meaning it’s older than words that begin with dict-. It actually appeared a couple of centuries earlier as (get this) edit, but no, it’s not related to the other edit. Because why would it be? Anyway! Edict comes from the Old French edit and classical Latin edictum/edicere, which is just edict and writing. The e comes from ex-, out, and dicere is to say, so it’s to say out. I guess an edict is something you say out loud…

Predict is relatively recent, having showed up in the early seventeenth century, although prediction showed up a century earlier. It comes from the classical Latin praedicatus/praedicere, predicted and to predict. No shockers there. Pre- means before, and dicere is say, so it’s say before, which is the only way you can really make a prediction. I mean, predicting things after they happen is pretty easy.

And now for a word that’s always really bugged me. Indict showed up in the early fourteenth century with the same meaning we have today. It comes from the Anglo French enditer, indict, and Old French enditier, which could mean indict and also write or compose. Before that, it’s the Vulgar Latin indictare, declare or accuse, a combination of in-, in, and dictare, which if you’ll remember from last week is slightly different than dicare—it’s the frequentative, the continuous action word. This makes the word “in saying”, if that makes sense. Okay, no it doesn’t. Nor does why English decided to switch to the Latinized spelling of it when we don’t say the frigging C. Seriously, what the hell.

Okay, stay tuned next week for the fascinating conclusion.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Fordham University

July Goals

And kind of June goals since I didn’t do them. I can tell you, that is one month that I’m glad is gone.

Now let’s look way back at May.

May Goals

1. Look at revisions for old projects and see what needs to be done.

I did do this, and even did some revising! But I didn’t do nearly as much as I thought I would, due to being busy and then the world exploding.

2. Come up with a plan for what I want to write next. In addition to the revising, I should look at doing something brand new.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do this. I kept trying to think of what I wanted to write and I’d get really excited about planning it out for a day, then go What? No. I don’t want to do this. It’s a terrible idea. It was all kind of a mess.

3.  Update the Etymology page on the blog. It’s been a while…

At least I did this! It was easily the best part of the last two months and that’s really kind of sad.

Goals-wise, it wasn’t a very good month. And also everything else-wise. Especially everything else-wise. But maybe July can be better.

July Goals

1. See how I’m doing on my yearly resolution, because I’m betting it’s not good.

2. Figure out if I can block off some time once a week or something for me to just write.

3. Write something, anything, without any strings attached (like I have to finish it or it has to have a certain word count).

So, that’s the plan. So what are your plans for July? Doing anything now that summer is in full swing? Or winter, if you’re in the southern hemisphere?

Known Issue

Have you ever thought that operating systems are designed by someone who really hates functionality? Because I have. Often.

There were several different fixes for the problem because, you know, it’s not like Microsoft ever bothered to correct what’s causing it even though it’s been happening for almost a year now. It’s like, hey, we’ll give you back the Start menu! But yeah, it randomly breaks. Whoops : (