Earth Shaking

I’m not even kidding, the whole house shook.

It was ridiculous. I’ve experienced one earthquake in my life that I haven’t slept through and it was barely a vibration. This was way more powerful.

Seriously, dude. Turn down the bass!

Language of Confusion: Part II

Something about “Part, Part II” seemed kind of ridiculous.

Anyway! Today we’re looking at words that begin with part, which comes from the Proto Indo European pere-, to grant or allot.

First, party. In the sense of a party of people, it showed up in the fourteenth century, but back then it meant a part/section/portion, which is not something we really use anymore. From there it evolved to a party, as in a group of people, and it didn’t mean a party you throw for fun until 1716 (it wasn’t a verb, like to party, until 1922, which… yeah, that sounds like the 1920s). As for its history, party comes from the Old French partie, which meant a part or portion, like party originally did in English. Its verb form is partir, to divide, from the classical Latin partire/partiri, which means to share ordivide. That’s related to pars, part in Latin, which we talked about last week and is from pere-.

Next, partner showed up in the fourteenth century, although back then it was spelled partiner, which was also spelled parcener. That comes from the Old French parçonier, partner, from parçon, partition or portion, and that’s from the classical Latin partitionem, which, you know, partition. Partition itself showed up in the fifteenth century as particioun, from the Old French particion, which is another descendant of partitionem, pars, and pere-. We can also throw partisan in there, although it’s relatively newer, having shown up in the mid sixteenth century. It’s from the Middle French partisan, from the classical Latin partem, part, which is again from pars.

There are also part words that have dropped the T, like parse and parcel. Parse showed up in the mid sixteenth century as a grammatical term. It comes from the Middle English pars, part of speech, from the Old French pars, which is actually the plural of part, which means… part. And because everything about this one is super obvious, that pars is from the Latin pars. In slightly less duh origins, there’s also parcel, which showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning a portion or part of something. Basically, it went from a part of something, to a quantity of anything, to a quantity of goods in a package, to a package. It’s from the Old French parcele, and before that the Medieval Latin parcella and Vulgar Latin particella. That’s from the classical Latin particula, another word we talked about last week as being from pars and pere-.

How strangely sensible this one was.

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 Texas at Arlington

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Encyclopaedia Britannica

University of Ottawa, Canada

From The Spamfiles

Are they a woman who looks like a god or a woman who looks at a god? Seriously though, what is this trying to say? Like, are they trying to say they’re religious? Or did they misspell “good”? Damn it, I’m once again spending way too much time thinking about this!

Which do you want, Colombian Beauty or Ukrainian Charm? Ooh! What about both? Can we do both?

Now, they used a “no reply @ gmail” address, so that’s actually believable. But then they immediately ruin it with stuff like a ® symbol just thrown in there, and then the fact that the salutation is just “Respected”. So close, guys. You almost had me there.

Come on, all you sensualist lovers and unicorns out there. Fun fact, a “unicorn” is a term used to describe a woman interested in sleeping with couples. Now you know and you can never erase it from your memory.

How… unsettlingly specific.

Ouch Again

This… really happened.

I suppose it doesn’t hurt as bad as the last time it happened for absolutely no reason.

Language of Confusion: Part, Part I

Yes, another multi-part series. And this one focusing on the word part! Considering how often I use it, I’m surprised it took this long to get to it. Buckle in, because this is going to be a long one.

Part itself showed up in the mid thirteenth century from the Old French part, which is from the classical Latin partem, which, you know, means part. Nothing shocking here. It can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European pere-, to grant or allot, which makes sense. You can allot a part of something.

Next, we’re going to look at a bunch of words that begin with part. Partial showed up in the late fourteenth century, just meaning not whole at first and then meaning biased towards one side in the early fifteenth century. For some reason. Anyway, it’s from the Medieval Latin partialis, partial, and classical Latin pars, which means part. That’s also where partem comes from, so we’re not looking at any major revelations here.

Participate showed up in the early sixteenth century, possibly from participation, which showed up in the late fourteenth century. Participation comes from the Old French participacion and Late Latin participationem, which means participating. In classical Latin, the verb form is participare, to participate. Now, the part from is from the already mentioned pars, but the -cip- part is from capere, to take, a word we’ve talked about extensively during my posts about case. So participate is “to take an allotment”. I guess if you’re participating, you are taking something…

Particular showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the Old French particuler and Late Latin particularis, from the classical Latin particula, which actually means particle. Yes, that’s where particle comes from. It also showed up in the late fourteenth century, and it’s also from particula. A particle is a particular thing.

How sensible this all was. I’m sure the next few weeks will change that.

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

Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Do… do people actually answer these? In spite of the fact that their email addresses are used in place of their names, and the bad grammar? I mean… they must fall for them, otherwise these messages wouldn’t still be coming. I just can’t wrap my head around HOW people buy this.

At least this one looks almost legit. The only red flag is the third party provider of the gift card “Mpell”. Because that’s totally a word.

 
 

Yes, I’m totally overwhelmed by the Ukrainian Charm. Mostly because they won’t stop sending it to me.

You have. Coffers aren’t usually picky.

It’s not often you get an offer for a new buddy. I approve. I also like how they say the persons shown in the photos aren’t necessarily users of the site, immediately followed by NO FAKE PROFILES.

No credit card requires girl will make first move.

Valentine’s Day

This is what happens when you go to the grocery store on Valentine’s Day.

The line of men stretched all the way across the store. Apparently it didn’t occur to any of these guys to make plans in advance.

Secret Origins: 9

Yeah, I felt like doing something easy this week.

As a word, nine comes from the Middle English nin, from the Old English nigon (which would have been pronounced ni-jon or ni-yon). Before that, it was the Proto Germanic newun, and it can be traced to the Proto Indo European newn. Which, you know. Just means nine.

If you look at the numeral, you can see that nine has actually been pretty consistent. Now, as I’ve been saying the last nine times I’ve done this, the numeral system we use originated in India, probably because they had a lot of advances in math in the early centuries of the era—I’m sure in no small part because they were actually the first to have the concept of zero. The 9 looked more like a seven in Brahmi (which is weird because the 7 also looked like that, but at a different angle), but then in Hindu, it has a little loop on it, so it looks like a 9 facing the other direction. Arabic flipped it over and then, yeah, just nine.

So that’s it for the basic numerals, since every other number is made up of some combination of 0-9. But there are still words to look at. I’m sure I’ll get to more of those the next time I’m looking for an easy post.

Damn, first I finished letters, now numbers. What else can I look at?

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

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

University of Texas at Arlington

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Archimedes Laboratory Project

From The Spamfiles

I still can’t figure out the random capital letters that are thrown into words. What is its purpose? Is it a secret message? Is the secret message “my”?

It’s not a model. It’s almost a model. Also, what is with that creepy looking emoji?

We have your soul mate! The ransom is two million dollars! Send it by tonight or we’ll start lopping off fingers!

Jennifer is emailing to let me know that Rebecca has unlocked her private video! And they’re both definitely totally real people!

Huh. I think this email might be soliciting sex.

It’s very excited about being the support team. Good for them for being happy.

Chomp

A little while ago my back started hurting for some reason, so I went to lay down on the floor because that made it feel better. And this is what happened.

Seriously, she just walks up on me and starts attacking my head.

Language of Confusion: Homing, Part II

Now with even more homes.

Apartment

Now, really this word is obviously related to part, which is another word I have to get to at some point, but we’ll just focus on the apartment part for now. It showed up in the mid seventeenth century basically meaning private rooms for a person/family within a house—essentially what it is today. It comes from the French appartement, which is from the Italian appartamento and its verb form appartere, to separate. The prefix a- means to and the rest is from the classical Latin partem, which means, well, part, unsurprisingly. It’s from the Proto Indo European pere-, to grant or allot. So an apartment is a part of a building.

Domicile

This one showed up in the mid fifteenth century, from the Old French domicile and classical Latin domicilium, domicile. That’s thought to be related to domus, which means home, but it’s another one of those things that isn’t sure in spite of the fact that it makes 100% perfect sense. It’s also thought to be related to the verb colere, to cultivate, which is actually the origin word for colony. So there’s that.

Shelter

Shelter showed up in the late sixteenth century, and it’s thought to be a variation on the Middle English sheltron/sheldtrume, and oh my god, we could have had sheltron as a word and for some reason we don’t. Anyway, it’s from the Old English scyldtruma, where scyld means shield and truma, troop. So a shelter is a troop of shields??? That’s one theory. There’s a lot of debate about that, though.

Lodge

Lodge showed up in the thirteenth century as loggen, to set up camp (as a verb), or as logge, a place or last name before turning into a regular noun. It comes from the Old French loge/logier, which is from the Frankish laubja, shelter, and Proto Germanic laubja-, also shelter. Before that, it’s actually thought to be from the Proto Indo European leub(h)-, to peel, strip, or break off, which happens to be the origin word of leaf. Well, probably. Look, these words are really, really old and people weren’t good about keeping records.

Hut

Hut showed up in the mid seventeenth century, from the French hutte, hut, which was taken from the Middle High German hütte, cottage or hut. That’s thought to be from the Proto Germanic hudjon-, which is related to hide (like, to hide, not an animal hide (didn’t I just say this last week? (yes, I totally did!))) and the Proto Indo European (s)keu-, to cover or conceal.

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 Texas at Arlington

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

Encyclopaedia Britannica

February Goals

January was a tough month. I felt like crap the entire time, for a variety of reasons, and had a hard time getting in any kind of creative mindset. I’d say I was glad it was gone, but February has a bunch of pain-in-the-ass problems of its own!

What was I even supposed to do this month?

January Goals

1. Write the short story I have planned, and edit one of my old ones.

I really thought I’d be able to knock this out easy, but it feels like every ounce of creativity has been drained from me. I only got about a thousand words down, maybe halfway done.

2. Keep working on my goals from last month.

I guess I did this. I spent most of my time focused on editing, so that’s something.

3. Work on daily goal planning for my writing.

This was easier. More than once I didn’t meet those goals, but I’m trying.

Okay, now let’s see what goals I’ll fail to meet this month.

February Goals

1. Do all the adult stuff I have to that gives me panic attacks.

2. Work on edits to my other WIP.

3. Keep working on the query, and hopefully get around to finishing that story.

Great, so now it’s February. And there’s even an extra day tacked on to the end of it! Like it’s not way too long as it is!

It’s Winter, But Still Bugs

Get your own house, spiders!

What even is the purpose of winter if we can’t at the very least get rid of the bugs???