It’s Just A Game Two

Back in February I posted about a quick, fun game that purports just to be Tic Tac Toe… until you play a few rounds and the game starts cheating and it becomes sort of a puzzle where you have to figure out how to outthink the game. I liked it! It only took me about fifteen minutes to beat the first time, too, so it was quick. And now there’s a sequel!

This game is called Tic Tac Two and the first time I played it I was disappointed. It was just like extended levels from the first one. Fun, yeah, but not original like the first one had been. Then I found out I was giving up too soon. See, the first time it flashes the “Thanks For Playing!” screen, you’re not done! You wait and it takes you to a bunch more levels with more unique gameplay, just like the first one.

So yeah, this is one sequel that managed to live up to the first one. It was a lot of fun, and if you have some free time, go check it out!

Another Item For The List

Frankly, it’s my own fault. I knew who I was dealing with.

I wasn’t gone for more than twenty minutes. I really have to be more careful around her.

Language of Confusion: File

File has a lot of meanings. Let’s look at them, shall we?

The first file to show up was the metal file. Although the exact date for the noun isn’t known, the verb (to file something down) showed up in the early thirteenthcentury and it came from the noun. The word comes from the Old English feol, file, which is from the Proto Germanic fihalo, cutting tool, and is thought to be from the Proto Indo European peig-, cut or mark with incision. And I know that word has shown up here before.

But there’s also another file, the one related to documents. That couldn’t possible related, could it?

Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

That file first showed up in the mid fifteenth century, both as a verb and a noun. Originally, the noun meant “string or wire on which documents are strung” and the verb was “place papers in consecutive order for future reference”. At least the latter makes sense. It’s from the French file, which could mean file or a row, while the verb is from the Old French filer, which had the documents-on-a-wire definition, but could also mean to spin thread. Both words are related to the Middle French filer (string documents, apparently that was a popular thing in the middle ages), and the Old French fil, thread or string. They’re from the classical Latin filum, wire or thread, and further back the Proto Indo European gwhis-lom, from gwhi-, thread or tendon.

That gwhi- is related to several other words. First there’s profile, which showed up in the mid seventeenth century as the outline of something and comes from the Italian profilo, outline. It’s a mix of the prefix pro-, which is from per- here and means forward, and filare, from the Late Latin filare, to spin or draw out a line. That word is from filum, which of course is from gwhi-. There’s also defile… but not the defile you’re thinking of. That one’s actually related to foul. No, defile the noun is a narrow passage, which makes sense when you remember that file also means row in French.

Other words related to the row/thread file include filament, fillet, and fiber. Will I get to them some day? Probably!

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Dictionary.com

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

University of Ottawa, Canada

Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

It’s that time of month again! I really don’t feel like coming up with an original post.

Hey, I’m not a senior! I mean, sure, I hurt my knee a few months ago and sometimes my back aches and I can’t see as well at night as I used to oh my god I’m a senior.

I assume that secret is “Cut the child in half.”

Good, because when I’m on the go my oxygen is always going unconcentrated.

I would really hope the price quote would be free. Can you imagine having to pay someone to tell you how much you have to pay them?

Wow. And here I thought tinnitus was caused by problems in the inner ear! But nope. It’s food.

It Was A Chocolate Covered Banana

This is a frequent issue with me…

In my friend’s defense, she did at least catch it before I made an idiot of myself.

I mean, more than usual.

Language of Confusion: -Cise, Part II

More of this! Please let this be the last week!

Incise

We don’t use incise much these days, although incisor and incision are still popular. Incision actually predates incise by two hundred years, as incise showed up in the mid sixteenth century—incisor on the other hand showed up in the seventeenth century. Incise and incisor come from the French inciser, which is from the Old French enciser and incision is from the Old French incision. All are from classical Latin, from incisus (cut) and incisionem, respectively, and both those words come from the verb incidere, to cut. The in- means into here and -cidere, as we discussed last week, comes from the Latin caedere, to cut or hack. Yeah, I’d prefer a doctor making a “cut” into me rather than a “hack”.

Exercise

One of my least favorite activities, exercise showed up in the mid fourteenth century from the Old French exercice and classical Latin exercitium, the noun form of exercise. Its verb form is exercere, to exercise obviously, which is a mix of the prefix ex-, off, and arcere, to keep away, prevent, or coerce, and is from the Proto Indo European ark-, hold, contain, or guard, the origin word for arcane. So exercise isn’t related to the other -cise words. But more importantly it’s related to a word for coerce and I think that’s just extremely apt.

Exorcise

This should be a fun one. Maybe more appropriate for Halloween? Exorcise first showed up in the fifteenth century from the Old French exorciser and Late Latin exorcizare. That word was actually take from Greek, where the word is exorkizein, which meant banish evil spirits… or, you know, exorcise. So this one isn’t related to the -cise words either? And it use to be spelled “exorcize”, but may have changed to an S because of the influence of exercise. No, I can’t believe it either.

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

Now This One’s Definitely A Scam

Most of my spam gets caught in a filter, but every now and then one slips through. I was surprised at this one because of how legit it looked. Most of the messages I get that say “You’re account is ready!” (or something similar) don’t have an email address that actually says it’s from the company they’re claiming to be (most recently I’ve gotten a message from Lyft at “bulknesloadbaharouth.com” because that’s a thing).

So this one was already a step above the others. Look at it:

No glaring spelling errors or anything! I’m stunned! I tried mousing over the links they sent (definitely not clicking), but they didn’t show me the website it would send me to. So I went into the Inspect screen (right click or hit Ctrl+Shift+I). That gives a lot more information.

Now, I’m not expert when it comes to coding. I couldn’t even figure out BASIC. But I can understand some things, including…

Basically, they have a big old redirect in the link they claim is going to Apple. And it’s to “bdlawyersdir”! Come on, spam. You were doing so well before. Now you have me going to something that seems to be called Bad Lawyers Direct.

Anyway, if you get a notice from something that you didn’t sign up for and you’re not totally sure it’s fake, check where the link is going. Inspect is very useful in that regard.

Sincerely, your Spam Maven.

Why I Hate Helping

I hate it when my mom asks me to help her with something. It’s not like I can say no. Or do anything right ever, apparently.

For some reason, the bottom screw just wouldn’t go in further after a certain point. But she accepted it because at least it wasn’t loose anymore.

Language of Confusion: -Cise, Part I

Not a big huge series this time, just a two-parter. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, like a bunch of new words being added to the dictionary next week.

Precise

Precise first showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Middle French precis, condensed or cut short. French took it from the Medieval Latin precisus and classical Latin praecisus, cut off or abridged, from the verb praecidere, to cut off. The pre- means before, and the -cidere comes from caedere, hack or cut, which can be traced back to the Proto Indo European kae-id-, to strike. Plus there’s also imprecise, which showed up in 1804 and is a mix of in, opposite, and precise, so it’s just the opposite of precise.

Decisive

Decisive showed up in the early seventeenth century, coming from the Medieval Latin decisivus and classical Latin decis, from the verb decidere, which could mean decide or also drop or fall off. The word decide showed up much earlier than decisive, having been here since the late fourteenth century by way of the Old French decider. But it too comes from  decider, which is a mix of de-, off, and caedere, to cut. Cut off, drop off…decide?

Concise

Concise showed up in the late sixteenth century from the classical Latin concisus, cutshort or brief. Here the con- comes from com-, which is only thought to be intensive here , so mixed with the caedere it’s to really cut. I guess that’s being  concise.

Excise

Excise showed up in the late fifteenth century meaning a tax on goods and not to cut something out until a century later. Which is kind of weird considering that’s what the Latin version of the word means. Excisus and the verb form excidere, mean, respectively, cut and drop, fall, or prune a mix of ex-, out, and caedere). So why do we have an excise tax? Because the tax was originally the Middle Dutch excijs/accijs, which means tax, and somehow got mixed up with excise. That might be the stupidest origin for a word I’ve ever heard.

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

History of the Dutch Language

Mid-Year Check In

Well, this year’s about half over, and I know I’m saying “Thank god, just please make the nightmare end sooner.”

Anyway! It’s about time I look at the resolutions I set up for this year because I can’t remember what any of them actually are.

Resolutions 2018

1. Figure out some way to better keep track of my goals and resolutions. I used to use a sticky note on my desktop, but I hate it looking cluttered…

I put the sticky note back on my desk top. At least I’m remembering some goals.

2. Write a new book.

Did this.

3. Actually finish a book this year!

Looking pretty good that this is going to happen.

4. Once again, try to eat better. Cut back on sugar, and whatnot.

I made this a goal? Hm. Whoops.

5. Takeover/destroy the world. Which it’ll be will probably depend on my mood.

At this rate, I’m leaning towards destroy.

6. Find something fun to do in my spare time. I need more fun. We all need more fun.

Always make sure to have fun.

7. Write something every day. Well, at least this will be easy.

Pretty much every day, except for the weekends. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

I’m really on track this year. Which proves one thing: as the world dissolves into an unceasing nightmare, I will do anything to escape it, even actual work.

Go Fourth

Yeah, these are my feelings about parades in a nutshell.

Don’t put me in crowds and not expect rampages to happen.

Language of Confusion: Shook Up

I’ve had these words on the brain lately. Possibly because I keep finding them in my MS.

Shook/Shake

Shook showed up in 1891, which is relatively recent. It comes from shake, which is much older, having shown up in the fourteenth century. It comes from the Old English sceacan, which could mean shake, or move something, or depart. The earliest language that it was known was as the Proto Germanic skakanan. Although that doesn’t necessarily mean that they were the one who came up with it.

Tremor/Tremble

Yes, these words are also connected. Tremor showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning terror, which seems weird, but it comes from the Old French tremor, which could mean terror or quaking (I guess a tremor is something you fear). It comes from the classical Latin tremorem (tremor), which is from the verb tremere, to shiver or tremble. Which brings tremble into the picture. It also showed up in the fourteenth century, and also from the Old French, in this case trembler. It came to us from the Vulgar Latin tremulare, which was from the classical Latin tremulus (trembling), which again is derived from tremere. Tremere can actually be traced to the Proto Indo European trem-, to tremble, so this word has stayed remarkably static over the millennia.

Shiver

Shiver has two definitions, one that means splinter, and the other that means shake, and as far as I can tell, they aren’t related. The shaking shiver showed up in the fifteenth century as an alteration of chiveren, which meant shiver and showed up in the thirteenth century. Before that it’s a big old question mark. Like shake, it just kind of appeared one day.

Shudder

Shudder showed up in the early fourteenth century, but not much is known about where it comes from. It might be from the Middle Dutch schuderen, to shudder, or the MiddleLow German  schoderen, both of which come from the Proto Germanic skuth-, to shake. But that’s not for sure, no matter how much it seems to make sense.

Quiver

Quiver showed up in the late fifteenth century and before you ask, no, it’s not related to the thing you hold arrows in. That one is French in origin and this one is… well, probably not. No one’s really sure where it came from. It might be imitative, which means that people thought that shivering sounded like quiver. Or it might be related to quaver, which is a vocal tremor. That does make sense, but as a third option it could be from the Old English cwifer, which I couldn’t find a definition for, unfortunately.

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

Corpus of Historical Low German

History of the Dutch Language

July Goals

And now it’s July. How does this keep happening? Someone make it stop. But not this month. Next month, because that’s when my birthday is.

Time to check out my goals.

June Goals

1. Do my first color partition—when I highlight different parts of the MS in different colors to make sure everything works. I know I’ve posted about this at some point…

Yes, I did this, and I didn’t catch any glaring errors in terms of writing flow. That’s another draft down.

2. Do my second color partition—this one is checking for sensory cues to make sure descriptions are evocative. I’ve explained this one, too.

It went pretty smoothly. Of course now I’m wondering if I paid enough attention to it, because ninety nine percent of editing is thinking that it’s not good enough.

3. Update my etymology page. I can’t remember the last time I did it, which means it’s time to do it again.

Done, all the way up to the end of the -ment words. Now I can forget about it again for a few months.

June worked out pretty well. Writing-wise, anyway. The world at large seems to have turned into a cesspool of greed and corruption.

Anyway, goals!

July Goals

1. Do my word search. I always find I overuse certain words and phrases so now I have to get rid of some of them so it’s not totally ridiculous. You want to know how much I use the word “even”? Because it’s embarrassing.

2. Finish the short story I started. This one should be easy.

3. Get ready for my blogging break next month!!! I’ll have to get some extra posts ready.

Now I can’t stop thinking of infinite birthdays and infinite cake. So what are you doing this month?