Powerless

You might think I’m getting repetitive, but it’s not my fault that these things keep happening.

Thankfully it was only off for two hours this time instead of two days. I’m still getting sick of this happening, though.

Language of Confusion: Endings

I did beginnings, so it’s time to do endings, too. Except for end and conclude, which were both covered at other times.

Close

Close is one of those annoying words with a million definitions and a pronunciation that changes depending on the context. Honestly, I’m just glad that all the different forms are related because I’ve had it up to here with words that randomly sound alike but are completely different. Anyway. Enough rambling. Close as in shut showed up in the thirteenth century, which was a century before close as in near. Both words come from the Old French clos-, the past participle stem of the verb clore, to shut (it took on the connotation of “closing a gap”, hence near). That word is from the classical Latin  clausus, closed, from the verb claudere, to close. That can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European klau- which means… hook? What?

Finish

Finish first showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the Old French finiss- the past participle stem (two in a row here) of fenir, to finish. It’s from the classical Latin finire, to limit or end, related to finis, end or boundary. It might be related to figere, the origin word for fix, but it’s definitely related to finite.

Final

Final is of course also related, just with a slightly different origin. It showed up before finish, in the earlyfourteenth century, from the Old French final and Late Latin finalis, concluding or final. And that of course is from finis. Yeah, this one shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Cease

Cease showed up in the fourteenth century as cesen, to stop moving/acting. It’s from the Old French cesser, with basically the same meaning, and classical Latin cessare, which is just to stop. That’s from another Proto Indo European word, ked-, which is the origin for pretty much anything with -cess or -cede in it.

Terminate

Terminate showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin terminatus, terminating. That’s from the verb terminare, which is just to terminate. That one’s obviously related to terminal, which showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Latin terminalis, the adjective form of terminare.

No great mysteries here. I’m kind of relieved. This one was pretty straight-forward.

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

Spamfiles Classics

Yes, we’re doing this again. I’m just so tired… So much editing…

I have no idea what is going on here. My dog possibly acquired details. Eric’s email address is not legitimate. Stephen help us!

Like someone with a blog named “Cures For Genital Warts” has the right to tell me to change my title.

Heh. Firmoo. It’s run by cows!

Look up irony in the dictionary, and one of the definitions will have a picture of this post.

Food chemicals. As opposed to all the food non-chemicals, like food that’s made entirely of photons.

Blood pressure is a myth! Blood has no pressure otherwise it would explode in your bodies! WAKE UP PEOPLE.

Just Assume I Have A Gigantic Whiteboard

Last week I heated up some leftover spaghetti and put most of it on my plate. There was just a couple of strings left behind when I put the container into the sink. I figured that was okay.

I was wrong.

In all fairness, the donuts, frosting, tomato juice, and celery are all because of Veronica. The last two are all Peaches, though.

Language Of Confusion: Bodies Of Water, Part II

Back for more, are you?

Bay

Bay showed up in the fifteenth century from the Old French baie and Late Latin baia, which might be from the Celtic Iberian (Celtic people who settled in what’s now Spain) bahia. And it’s not related to any other usage of the word bay, because why would it be?

Pond

Pond showed up in the thirteenth century, but back then it only meant a fake body of water. Uh, fake in the man-made sense as opposed to naturally occurring (which it did pick up the meaning of later on). It’s actually a variation of the word pound, but not the pound that means weight or money or hit repeatedly. Instead it’s from the one that refers to the place where stray animals go, because that means enclosure and I guess somehow a pond is an enclosure? It’s of “unknown origin” before that, but… yeah. Animal pound and pond are two words I did not expect to be related.

Creek

Creek showed up in the mid fifteenth century as creke, which is an altered form of kryk, which showed up in the thirteenth century. It might be from the Old Norse kriki, corner or nook, with some influence from the Anglo French crique, or hell, it might be related to the word crook (in the sense of being crooked or twisted literally as opposed to figuratively). Well, these words are turning out to be more interesting than expected.

Strait

Strait showed up in the mid fourteenth century, but it didn’t refer to bodies of water until the late fourteenth century. It comes from the Old French estreit/estrait, narrow pass, which is where we get the non-water related strait (as in strait-laced or straitjacket) and is absolutely not related to straight in anyway. Somehow. And strait comes from the classical Latin strictus, narrows, past participle of stringere, bind. And before you ask, strictus is where we get strict but stringere is somehow not where we get string. No, that would make too much sense.

Gulf

Gulf showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French golf (gulf) and Italian golfo, (also gulf). It’s from the Late Latin colfos, which was taken from the Greek kolpos, bay or curved shape (also one of its definitions is sinus). That word can be traced to the Proto Indo European kwelp, arch, curve, or vault. Fun fact: whelm (as in over or underwhelm) is from the same word!

This one was way weirder than last week’s. I think it broke my brain. How are words even real?

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

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Fordham University [http://www.fordham.edu/]

Orbis Latinus

Standing Idly By

Time for another game recommendation, because I’m sure I’m a huge influencer in this regard.

Have you heard of idle games? AKA incremental/clickers games? They’re games that you play for a bit to set things up, then leave idle to rack up points or whatever that you then spend to… earn more efficiently. Look, it’s more fun than it sounds.

A month or so ago I found a game called Idle Evolution, which is actually less about evolution and more about collecting atoms, which you can use for a variety of purposes, one of which is making compounds that somehow advance evolution on a planet. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense scientifically. But still, I had fun with it. I haven’t played anything like it before and it appeals to the chemistry nerd in me.

There are actually two versions of the game, one on Newgrounds, which is basically a beta/scaled down version of the paid (four dollars) Steam version. The Steam one is obviously better as it has added mini-games to make the waiting less boring, and also it’s much, much faster in terms of getting through the game. It takes like fifteen hours of gameplay to get through it in Steam; I haven’t actually finished the browser version because as you progress further it gets sooooo sloooooow. Basically it’s what you want to play if you want to see if you’ll like the full version.

It has some flaws, like things taking forever sometimes and the translation—the creator doesn’t speak English and it shows in places. But it’s worth the four bucks it costs and I love that you’re unlocking a periodic table piece by piece. I hear there’s a sequel as well, but it’s not on Steam unfortunately so I can’t check it out. Oh well.

You played any fun games lately? What do you do when you want to waste time?

Seriously Shut Up

Three things I hate:

1. Advice I didn’t ask for.

2. Explanations I didn’t ask for.

3. Explanations I didn’t ask for that I already know.

“Why don’t we hang out more?”

“Because you’re always explaining things I didn’t ask about to me in a condescending manner.”

“What? I don’t do that. And really, condescending refers more to—”

“Bye.”

Language of Confusion: Bodies of Water, Part I

Inspired by run being related to the flow of water last week.

Ocean

Ocean showed up in the late thirteenth century from the Old French ocean and classical Latin  oceanus, ocean. It’s not really surprising to learn that the Romans ripped off the Greeks, as oceanus is from the Greek okeanos, which also just means ocean. Where that word is from no one knows but there is the Greek Titan Oceanus. Who knows how they came up the name for that?

Sea

Sea comes from the Old English sae, which means sea, big shocker. It’s from the Proto Germanic  saiwaz, but there isn’t anything before that. Well, that was a quick one.

Lake

Lake showed up in the early twelfth century from the Old French lack and classical Latin lacus, which meant lake, pond, cistern and other similar words. That can be traced back to the Proto Indo European laku, body of water, and the origin for a lot of other languages’ lake equivalent. Fun fact, there are two other definitions for lake I hadn’t heard of, one meaning “to play” and the other “Deep  red coloring matter”. Neither of them is related to the other lake.

River

River showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Anglo French rivere and Old French riviere. Those words are from the Vulgar Latin riparia, riverbank, from the classical Latin riparia, embankment. Also related to this word are riparian, rift, and riven, which… I’ve heard of riparian, but riven???

That’s it for this week, but there’s plenty more water words to look at. Well, enough for another post anyway. This isn’t going to be another -leg saga. Thankfully.

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

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Fordham University

Unnecessary Roughness

The first draft of my latest WIP is done! I can’t even believe it! It’s been years since I’ve actually made it this far. And I still really like the story, which is even more impressive. I don’t mean just that I enjoy it or think it’s a good idea, but that I still find it interesting to write about. I’m still bummed that I never felt like finishing my previous book, but it never held my interest as much as this one has. I’m not sure what that says about it, but it’s something.

So the first draft is done, which means that it’s time to start editing. Usually I find editing to be such a bore, but I’m not dreading it this time, possibly because it’s been so long since I’ve actually done it. Actually, scratch “possibly”.

Anyway, I’m off to edit. Have an amazing day!

via GIPHY

Future Tense

She’s always doing this to me.

I’ll get her. Someday.

Language of Confusion: Run

This week’s word is brought to you by Liz. Because she read something that said that run was the most complicated word in the English language and I wanted to see if that was so.

Run first showed up as a verb and then later (in the fifteenth century) as a noun. The verb is actually a combination of two Old English words that are kind of alike, rinnan, to run and irnan/aernan, to ride. Both are from the Proto Germanic rannjanan and its root word ren-, to run, which is from the Proto Indo European rei-, to run or flow.

Rei- is the origin of a lot of words, like derive and rival, both of which I’ve already covered before (though almost three years ago now). And you might be thinking river is related. After all, flowing is what they do. But it’s not. Although river is from a Proto Indo European word “rei-”, it’s a different Proto Indo European rei- that means scratch or tear apart.

Okay, as weird as that is and as diverse in meaning as run may be, I definitely don’t think it’s complicated. But maybe I spent too much time pouring over information on leg-.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo Europeanlanguage

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

April Goals

It’s April. Hopefully this means that snow is done for the season. You’d think spring would mean, you know, spring.

I know. I complain about it a lot. It’s just that by this point I’m really sick of it. Anyway, goals.

March Goals

1. Get to 70K. This one I might not reach, but I’m going to try!

I did it! Plus some! And I’m so close to the end that I can see it! WOOOO!

2. Update my etymology page. I think I have three months of -leg posts to put in there.

Did this, too. All the -leg words are up, in case you missed them.

3. See if I can think up something fun to do for blog posts. I’ve been running low on ideas lately.

I don’t know. I thought this month was kind of fun.

So, pretty damn impressive over all. Definitely a successful month.

April Goals

1. Finish the book! If I haven’t already. As of this writing, I have two more chapters left. I may have already tweeted my victory, though.

2. Make a plan for editing!

3. Start editing!

Lots of exclamation points this month. Will I live up to the hype? We’ll have to see! What are you up to this month?