Thursday, August 30, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Birthdays
TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY! AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve mentioned before how our birthdays are only five days apart. It means double cakes! She always prefers chocolate frosting, but I lean towards white with a chocolate cake.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Language of Confusion: -Gress, Part III
Except… none of
these words actually have -gress in them. They’re all from ghredh-, though, which is the Proto Indo European origin
of the -gress words. Now, we already did -grade words, which includes upgrade and degrade, but there are still plenty of others
for us to look at.
Degree
Degree showed up
in the thirteenth century meaning a
step or stair (makes sense), a stage of progress/single movement towards the
end (still makes sense) or a position in a hierarchy (uh, less sense). It comes
from the Old
French degré, which had the same
meanings as above as well as an academic degree (maybe that’s related to the
hierarchy thing?), so that explains where we got that from. Kind of. It’s from
the Vulgar
Latin degradus, a step, a mix of
the classical Latin de-,
down, and gradus, which means a step or a degree. Yeah, a bit recursive
there. And gradus of course is from ghredh-, the word that unites these all
together.
Graduate
Graduate showed
up in the early fifteenth century and fun fact it used to be “graduate man” before just graduate the sexist
bastards. It’s from the Medieval
Latin graduatus, past participle
of graduari, to take a degree. And
that’s from gradus, which means degree. A degree is something that signifies “a
degree of something rising by stages”, and that’s why graduates have degrees.
Gradual
It shouldn’t
surprise anyone that gradual is part of this family. It showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning having
steps or ridges, from the Medieval Latin gradualis,
which is from gradus. Wow, these are getting shorter and shorter. Anyway,
something gradual is taking place by degrees, so a graduate gradually graduates
with a degree.
Ingredient
Yes, this word
belongs here, too! And once upon a time it was sometimes written as engredient.
It also showed up in the early fifteenth century,
coming from the classical Latin ingredientem,
which can mean things like “that which enters into” something, like an
ingredient to a recipe. It’s the present participle of ingredi, go in or enter,
a mix of in-, which is from en and means in,
and gradi, to step. An ingredient
is something that steps in.
Sources
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
From The Spamfiles
Five days until my birthday. So I’m
already checked out mentally. And spam posts are really easy.
I’m not sure which part of this is
more alarming, the Illuminati, the Requiem Mass from the Dark si(de?), or the
fact that it’s from the Yampa Valley Choral Society.
Look at me! I’m ignoring this!
Let’s play Spot The Red Flag!
1. Email address is all numbers and
letters.
2. “Where did you grow up?” is a
common security answer.
3. Saying “you are not like the
others” is something that makes all women run away screaming.
It’s about time my diplomat arrived.
He’s been on back order for months. Also I love how it says “this letter will
definitely be astonishing to you because of its realistic value.” Like, come
on. Come on.
By now, you guys should have a pretty good
idea of the stuff I post. Have you known me to post a health resource? Ever?
Believe me, Jasmine. I’m trying.
Saturday, August 18, 2018
It Tasted Terrible
You know what I like? Raisin Bran.
You know what I don’t like?
Always check for the telltale blue
stripe before opening a box of lies.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Language of Confusion: -Gress, Part II
Hopefully this
week won’t include any words as unpleasant as last week.
Regress
Regress showed up
in the late fourteenth century from
the classical Latin regressus, which means returning,
from regredi, to go back.
As we learned last week, gradi (which is where regredi comes from in spite of
the different vowels) means to walk,
and the prefix re- means back here. To
walk back. To regress. And gradi of course comes from the Proto Indo European ghredh-, to walk, which shows up in a
lot of words. We’ll get to those later.
Transgress
Transgress, one
of those words I don’t think we use enough, showed up in the late fifteenth century from the Middle French transgresser, and before that the
classical Latin transgressus, to
cross, as in transgress. It
comes from the verb transgredi, step
across, pass, or transgress,
and although we use it more metaphorically these days, it can also be quite literal.
See, trans- means across or beyond (well, it does here, anyway) and combined with to walk, it’s to walk across. If
you walk across someone, you’re transgressing them.
Egress
Speaking of
words we don’t use enough, egress showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the classical Latin egressus, gone
out or departure, and I’m sure
you see where this is going. It’s from egredi,
to go or to go out, and the e- is
from ex-, out. To walk out. It makes
sense! Plus there’s also ingress, where
the in- is from en-, which means…in. To
walk in!
Aggression
Yep, this word
is part of it, too. Aggression showed up in the seventeenth century,
and then later on words like aggressor and aggress (yes, that’s a word) formed. It’s from the
French aggression, which is from the
classical Latin aggressionem, from aggressio, which could mean aggression or “going in at”. Like the other words, it’s from aggredi, to attack,
and the a- comes from ad-, which means to.
So the word is… to walk at.
You can’t make this
stuff up.
Sources
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Just Turn Left
Because I don’t have any better
ideas, here’s what happened last year while I was out with my mom. She was
driving (of course, she never lets me drive) and it was dark and we were about
four miles from the house I grew up in, the one she’s lived in for more than
thirty years.
We were on a two-lane highway, but
one of the lanes was blocked off while workers ripped up the asphalt. Traffic
was backed way up and we’d end up sitting there forever if we didn’t turn off.
So we did. And this was the result.
Her: I have no idea where I am.
Me: I think you should head left
here.
She heads right.
Me: …
Her: All these roads look the same.
Me: At the next intersection, I’m
telling you, go left.
Her: I think we should go right. But
to compromise, I’ll go straight instead.
Me: …
Finally, we reach another
intersection, with only two directions.
Me: We should go left here. That
will lead us towards the grocery store and…
She goes right.
Me: …Why?
Her: We don’t want to go to the
grocery store. We want to go to the house.
Me: But if we went that way, then we
could have taken another left and we’d be heading towards the house.
Her: Hey, look at all these cars
heading towards us. We must be near the highway.
And we were. Right back where we
first turned off. We sat in traffic until we finally passed the roadwork.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Backstabbing
So I was sound asleep last week when
this happened. At four thirty in the morning.
It was so painful and I couldn’t lie
down, it just made it hurt worse. Eventually it waned enough for me to get back
to sleep, where I was then plagued by weird dreams, including my face being
infected and swollen. Which was because I was sleeping in an awkward position
with my cheek mashed into the pillow.
Yeah. Not a great night.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Language of Confusion: -Gress, Part I
Just a
two-parter. I hope.
Progress
Progress showed
up in the late fourteenth century as
a noun, and then as a verb in the late sixteenth century. I guess you could say…
progress was made. Anyway, it comes from the classical Latin progressus, which means, you know,
progress. The pro- means
forward here and the rest is from gradi, to walkor step, which is from gradus, a step. Like, the verb comes
from the noun. And before that it can be traced to the Proto Indo European ghredh-, to walk,
the origin of things like grade and
graduate, as well as the other words
we’re going to be looking at here.
Aggressive/Aggression
We don’t
actually say aggress, but apparently it’s a word. More common is aggressive or
aggression, the former of which showed up in the late eighteenth century,
while the latter showed up in the early seventeenth century meaning an unprovoked attack. It comes from the French aggression, which is in turn from the classical Latin aggressionem, an attack, which is from aggredi, to attack.
The a is from ad-, to,
and we already talked about gradi. Which means this word is “walk or step to”,
which I guess is a sign of aggression.
Digress
Digress showed
up in the mid sixteenth century from
the classical Latin digressus
(digress) from the verb digredi (to digress).
It’s getting pretty formulaic now. The di- is from dis-, apart or aside,
and with gradi, that means to digress is to step aside. Yeah, I can see it.
Congress
First of all, I
think we can all agree that if a sinkhole appeared in DC and swallowed Congress
into the pits of hell, that would be just fine. Second of all, congress showed
up in the fifteenth century meaning
a body of attendants or a meeting of armed forces before a meeting of people. It
comes from the classical Latin congressus,
meeting or association (or
congress), and it’s from the verb, to meet.
Con- means with, so all together a
congress is those you walk with. Wow, it
Ugh, thinking of
Congress left me all ticked off. I’m going to go punch someone.
Sources
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
August Goals
It’s AUGUST!!!! The month of my
birthday!!!!!!!! Presents! CAKE!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
Anyway, goals or whatever.
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.
This was
so tedious, but I did it, it’s DONE. I never have to do it again. Until the
next book. Whimper.
2. Finish the short story I started.
This one should be easy.
I was so
creatively wiped from the above I didn’t think I’d make it, but I did it. I
mean, it’s a rough draft so it’s not like it’s good. But it’s done.
3. Get ready for my blogging break
next month!!! I’ll have to get some extra posts ready.
Yes, I
now have two extra posts just waiting to go up while I’m off far away from the
internet. The third is always the trickiest since I don’t have a fixed theme
for it. I’ll have to wait and see what comes up.
So I did everything. Not bad, right?
August Goals
1. Work on the new idea rolling
around in my head.
2. Don’t do anything on the WIP. I
need a break from it. I know it seems weird to have not doing something as a
goal, but I keep feeling tempted to tweak it some more.
3. BIRTHDAY! Birthday birthday
birthday. Have I mentioned it’s going to be my birthday?
So that’s August. I have a feeling
it’s going to be pretty easy to make these goals. So what are you up to this
month?
Saturday, August 4, 2018
The Embarrassment Of It All
How many times does this happen to
you?
It’s like I catch a thousand typos
right after it’s published.
Well, not right after since I
publish at four a.m. Like, six hours after.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Language of Confusion: File, Part II
Yes, the long awaited sequel that
really wasn’t that long after and none of you were waiting for. It’s here!
Fillet/Filet
Did you know that there are two
different spellings for this word? Because I did not. They’re related, as filet
showed up in 1841 in cooking, and it
was taken from the French word filet, which they had already taken in the
fourteenth century as fillet. Could
not make this up. They’re both from the Old French
filet, thread or strip, and the verb
form originally meant to bind with a narrow band. And the reason we call a cut
of meat a fillet is because it was hung up on strings. Just like files. Which
makes sense since it’s from file.
Filigree
Does anyone even use this word? I
know I’ve heard it (it’s ornate wires, or fancy things in general),
although I can’t think of the last time I did. It showed up in the late seventeenth century, but it was
actually a shortening of the word filigreen,
which showed up in the mid seventeenth century from the French filigrane. Before that it was the
Italian filigrana, which was taken
from the classical Latin filum, which means wire and we talked about during the File post. Since filigree relates to wires, this
makes sense! Until you find out that the green/grane part of it comes from granum, grain.
Wire grain. That… makes less sense.
Fiber
What? Fiber is really related? Yes,
it is. It showed up in the late fourteenth century as fibre, meaning entrails or a lobe
of the liver. It comes from the Medieval
Latin fibre, and classical Latin fibra, which could mean fiber,
but also entrails. It’s origin is actually uncertain, but it’s thought to be from
filum. I mean, intestines are kind of string like…
Sources
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