The Stuff I Have To Deal With

If this is the shortest month of the year, why does it feel like it’s going on forever? Plus there’s another Tuesday and I have no idea what to post. So here’s a stupid conversation between me and my mom that took place when she showed up at my door at ten thirty in the morning:

Me: What’s up?

Her: Were you just sleeping?

Me: What?

Her: You look like you just woke up.

Me: I’m fully dressed. My hair is up.

Her: And you look like you just woke up! I think you were sleeping!

Me: You talked to me, like, an hour ago.

Her [narrowing her eyes]: I think you were sleeping.

Me: …

I’ve never been able to sleep during the day even when I’m tired. Unlike her, who enjoys an afternoon nap. She just thought I looked tired and couldn’t stand the thought of me being asleep. I think it physically pains her to see me resting.

Ugh.

Expired

Has anyone ever used a warranty ever?

Seriously, the notifications keep popping up. I don’t know how to get them to stop.

Language of Confusion: Legs Part VII

It feels like I’ve been doing this series all year.

First up today, legal. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Old French legal and classical Latin legalis, which is just legal. It’s from the word lex, which means law and is the origin word for legitimate as well as loyal (loyal and legal can be compared, spelling wise, to royal and regal). Now, you might bet thinking that lex is related to lexicon, and it is, but not as much as you might think. Like I mentioned several weeks ago, lexicon comes from Greek, but legalis is only from (probably) the Latin verb legere, which has also popped up in this series as the verb to read. And legere is from the Proto Indo European leg-, collect or gather, which is also where lexicon and all the other leg words originate.

Religion is also in the leg family. Well, maybe. It showed up in the thirteenth century with pretty much the same meaning as today, coming from the Old French religion and classical Latin religionem, religion or reverence for the gods. It’s thought to be from the word relegere, reread, which is literally re- (again) and legere, (to read). However there’s another theory, that religion actually comes from the same place as the word rely, which has nothing to do with the leg- words at all!

Privilege showed up in the mid twelfth century from the Old French privilege and classical Latin privilegium, privilege. No great surprises here. It’s actually a mix of the earlier mentioned lex and the word privus, individual, and the origin word for private. A private law… is a privilege.

Next, diligence showed up in the mid fourteenth century from the Old French diligence and classical Latin diligentia, diligence. Boy, I’m getting repetitive today. But diligentia is from diligere, single out, value highly… or love. The di- comes from dis-, apart, and legere means choose or gather here (instead of read). Gather apart to love to attentiveness. We’re getting some weird ones today.

Finally, to finish off the leg words once and for all… we have coil. Seriously. It showed up in the early seventeenth century from the Middle French coillir, to gather or pick, and classical Latin colligere, gathering. A word I actually mentioned when I did the post on collect. And like I said then, it’s a mix of the prefix com, together, and legere, to gather. I don’t know why it transformed into something spiraled together, but I do know that that didn’t happen until 1798! Can you believe it?

Anyway, we’re done!!! Woo!

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 Europeanlanguage

University of Ottawa, Canada

Spamfiles Classics

Time for another spam post! But since my spam filter has been working really well lately and I don’t have any amusing fresh ones for you, I’m going to mine my archives for some. I mean, I’ve got, like, two thousand. You probably haven’t seen these before. And if you have it’s been five years.

Wow. I’ve been doing this for way too long.

Perfumes help a lot with emphasis.

I think they’re insulting my writing, which is pretty damn offensive considering that their method of communication seems to be copy and pasting words from the dictionary.

Luckily making sense is not a requirement for making a lot of money! It explains a lot about the world, really.

I can safely say that no, I do not look like a blank spam message.

I know that supposedly the reason they write so incoherently is because that anyone who ignores it is an easy target. But come on. There has to be a limit. People can’t be seeing “God bless you as you listening to the voice of reasoning” and thinking “Hm! Looks legit!” Right?

…Right?

Bowled Over

Veronica is almost sixteen! That’s an old kitty. And it seems to be better for her digestion if she eats food formulated for old cats. However…

Peaches doesn’t want food. She wants other cats’ food.

Language of Confusion: Legs Part VI

Oh man. How many more are there?

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention to this series that logic is related. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century as, and I’m not making this up, logike. Does that make anyone else think of a bike made out of logs or is it just me? It comes from the Old French logique, classical Latin logica and Greek logike, both of which are logic. And I guess kind of explains the initial English spelling, although in Greek it obviously would be spelled with Greek characters. But logike is from logikos, reasonable or logical, which is from logos, reason.

Now colleague. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the Middle French collègue and before that the classical Latin collega, a colleague or office partner. It’s a mix of the prefix com- (they dropped the m here), together, and legare, which means revenues. Totally serious. I guess a colleague is someone you get revenues with? And legare is related to legere, which is where the -lect words come from, and both stem from the Proto Indo European root word leg-, collect or gather. You can also look at college, which is a very similar word. It showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French college and classical Latin collegium, which was a college and the plural of collega! So a college is many office partners. Oh, and you might be thinking that the word league is related seeing how it’s spelled the same as the last six letters of colleague. And you’d be completely and totally wrong.

Legend showed up in the early fourteenth century from the Old French legend and Medieval Latin  legenda, which all mean legend, too. In classical Latin, the word is legendus, which means read and is related to legere, which can mean read or collect. There’s also legion, which showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old French legion and Latin legionem. And there hasn’t actually been a change in definition over the years. Legionem is from the “collect” definition of legere, and a legion is a collection of soldiers.

That’s it for this week. One more week to go? I think?

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 Ottawa, Canada

Just A Game

Got another game for you today because I’d rather go write than think up a real post.

The fact that the name insists “It’s Just TIC TAC TOE” is what made me check it out. It is an ordinary game. It doesn’t even have a very hard to beat AI… at first.

It’s a really short game. I think it took me ten minutes to figure out all the levels. It’s very interesting and creative, and my only real complaint is that it is so short that it leaves me wanting more. I definitely hope to see another game like this someday.

So go take a break and have some fun!

Dirty

Ever try to clean something only to have it get dirtier? Sometimes there’s a reason.

 It’s easy to clean something when all you have to do is hit delete.

Language of Confusion: Legs, Part V

Yes, this is still going on. Will this be the last part? (checks word list) Holy crap, no? How many of these words are there?

A lot. This week, words with -logy or -logi in them.

Apology showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning a defense or justification, not what we know it as. It comes from the Late Latin apologia, which in turn comes from the Greek apologia, which means apology or plea—like one would in a defense, and is from apologos, which could mean logic or a story. So it does kind of make sense how an explanation for a wrongdoing could turn into regret for it. The apo- part means away from and logos is discourse or speech. That means an apology is…speaking away.

Homologous showed up in the mid seventeenth century from the Greek homologos, which means… homologous. But with more letters. Homo- means same, as I’m sure you’re aware, and one of the many other definitions of logos is reason. So it’s the same reason?

Next is trilogy, something we writers are very familiar with. It showed up in the sixteen sixties from the Greek trilogia, which was three interrelated works, in particular tragedies performed at Athens during the festival of Dionysus. As we all know, the tri- means three and since logos can mean story, it’s three stories. And another word we should all know is anthology, which showed up in the sixteen thirties as a collection of poetry! It’s from the classical Latin anthologia and Greek anthologia, which was a collection of “poems and epigrams by several authors”. But here’s where it gets weird. The first part of the word comes from anthos, which means flower! An anthology is a collection of flowers!

Now we’re going to shift tracks a bit and look at syllogism. That word showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French silogisme, classical Latin syllogismus, and Greek syllogismos, all of which mean syllogism. The syl- part is actually from syn-, together (like in synthesize). Logos means reason here, so in this case it’s a “reasoning together.” There’s also the word neologism, which showed up in 1772 from the French néologisme. That word combines neo- (new) with logos (word). It’s a new word.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

Dictionary.com

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Orbis Latinus

February Goals

Well, it’s February and there haven’t been any disasters thus far. So that’s…something. Anyway, goals.

January Goals

1. Find a better way to keep track of my goals and resolutions, even if I have to staple a paper to my computer to remember.

I’ve been trying to use a sticky note. I’m just not sure if it’s actually helping me.

2. Write! Something! Anything!

I actually did this! 16K! I can’t believe it either!

3. Do all the stupid adult stuff I have to do. Ugh, I hate being an adult. Everything has to be difficult.

Uh…Kinda? I wasn’t able to get everything I needed, so I wasn’t able to finish it all. Like I said, everything has to be difficult.

And now for February, the Monday of the months…

February Goals

1. Keep up with my writing and make it to 40K on my new WIP. I actually might make it!

2. Maybe do some editing on my old WIP that I swore I’d finish last year.

3. Finish all the stuff I couldn’t get to last month. Double ugh.

So this is what I’ll be doing this month. Do you have any plans?

Motor

This is pretty true to life.

That cat who holds the world record for loudest purr has nothing on her, I’m telling you.

Language of Confusion: Legs, Part IV

More -lect words, because boy are there a lot of them.

Lecture showed up in the fourteenth century meaning written works or literature, then learning from books before what we known it as. It comes from the Medieval Latin lectura, a reading, and classical Latin lectus, which is the past participle of legere, a word we should all be familiar with by now. Legere has a few different meanings, like select and choose, but to read is also one of them that formed a bit later, and kind of makes some of the other -lect words make more sense. Almost.

Plus there are other word related ones, like lesson, which showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Old French leçon, from the classical Latin lectionem, a reading. Basically it’s a -lect word that got softened by French. Then there’s lexicon, from the Middle French lexicon or Latin lexicon, which all are just lexicon. It didn’t change much over the years, is what I’m saying. It’s from the Greek lexikon, which, yeah, also just lexicon, and is from their word legein, to say.

Switching gears, let’s go look at neglect. It showed up in the sixteenth century from the classical Latin neglectus, the past participle of neglegere, to neglect or be indifferent to. The ne is from a Proto Indo European root, ne-, meaning not, while legere is select or choose and the g… is just there. Anyway, put it all together and it’s “to not select” which… I guess follows.

Next, intellect and intelligence, which both showed up in the fourteenth century from the Old French intellect and intelligence. Not much imagination there. They’re both traced to the classical Latin intelligere, to understand, a combination of inter- (between) and legere, read or select. So it’s read or select between? What?

And that’s it for this week, although there are STILL words to look at. As a couple of people have already pointed out, this series has legs.

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

University of Ottawa, Canada