Names

It gets hard to keep up.

These names were accurate at the time I wrote this comic, but they’ve probably changed by now.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetables, Part III

Ready for more of this?
 
Celery
Celery showed up in the mid seventeenth century as sellery, which in my opinion is the superior spelling and we should go back to it. And yes, there was a word for before then—two in fact, the Middle English ache and selinum. It comes from the French céleri, which is thought to be from a particular Italian dialect, where it is seleri. That’s from the Late Latin selinon, which is from the Greek selinon, an old word for parsley. I guess this one makes sense. Except for why the French had to ruin it by spelling it with a C.
 
Asparagus
Asparagus showed up in the late fourteenth century as aspergy, and I just find that word hilarious. It comes from the Old English sparage, which is from the classical Latin asparagus, which yes, means that this word actually became more like its origin word over the years. I guess there’s a first time for everything. Fun fact, aspartame comes from asparagus. I mean the word, although the chemical is found in asparagus, too.
 
Bean
Bean comes from the Old English bean, which means… bean. That’s from the Proto Germanic bauno, and its origin before that is unknown, although it might be related to the Proto Indo European bha-bha-, which means broad bean. But you know etymology rarely makes sense.
 
Turnip
Turnip showed up in the sixteenth century as turnepe. Its origin is kind of weird. First of all, it’s related to turn. It’s actually a combination of turn and the Middle English nepe, so turn + nepe = turnip. Nepe is from the Old English naep and classical Latin napus, which means turnip. As to why they decided to throw turn in there, I have no idea.
 
Cucumber
This one showed up all the way back in the late fourteenth century as cucomer, coming from the Old French cocombre and classical Latin cucumerem, which just means cucumber. Fun fact of this one, cucumber replaced the word eorðaeppel, which literally means earth-apple.
 
Radish
One more today because these have been pretty short. Radish comes from the Middle English radich and Old English raedic, which just means radish. It’s from the classical Latin radicem, which meant radish, but also more generally root, and is from the Proto Indo European wrad-, branch or root. Always weird when the etymology is logical.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Spam!

Is… this really a thing? Copper infused socks? What the hell are they supposed to do???

Boy, they really want me to unsubscribe. I suppose their harassment is slightly less intrusive than visiting a blog and immediately getting a popup to sign up for their newsletter.

The Network is still after me! It’s apparently the network professional network. You must know them.

Using different fonts makes it much more legitimate.

I get a lot of spam from casinos these days. Not sure what I signed up for that sold my email address to these online casinos I have to assume are completely fake, but there you go.

As you can see here, I’m apparently sending these to myself. First it says I’m going to receive 250 emails a day (oof), from “all catagorie” (ooooof), and then it tells me not replying is considered a yes. These spammers threaten hard.

Sick

More actual conversations I’ve had with my mom. She… provides a lot of fodder for these stories.

Seriously, her argument for him being sick was that the usually hyperactive cat was walking around at the pace of a normal cat. And for the record, he’s fine.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetables, Part II

There are still a lot more vegetables to look at. Seriously, this particular series could go on for weeks.
 
Corn
Don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but what’s called corn in America isn’t called corn anywhere else. Wheat, oats, and other grains are corn, and American corn is called maize, which is what indigenous Americans called it. There’s no real reason why we Americans insist on calling it corn, especially when you look at the history of the word. In Old English, corn means wheat, from the Proto Germanic kurnam, which means small seed and comes from the Proto Indo European gre-no-, grain, which is unsurprisingly the origin of grain. And for the record, the corn that has to do with the horns of animals, like as part of unicorn? Not related at all. But you know what that word is related to?
 
Carrot
Carrot showed up sometime in the sixteenth century, coming from the French carrotte and classical Latin carota. They got that from the Greek karoton, carrot, and that’s thought to come from the above mentioned ker-, which also gave us carat and its variant karat. Because carrots are shaped like horns, and that’s basically what that kind of corn is.
 
Pea
As a word, pea showed up in the seventeenth century from the Middle English pease, and apparently people dropped the S because they thought it sounded plural, even though pease is actually singular. Yeah, language is stupid like that sometimes. It’s from the Old English pise/poise, which is from the Late Latin pisa, and that’s from the classical Latin pisum, peas, which might be from the Greek pison, pea—makes sense, what didn’t the Romans steal from the Greeks? And that’s the earliest we can trace it.
 
Broccoli
Broccoli is relatively recent, having shown up in the late seventeenth century from the Italian broccoli. Funnily enough, that’s actually a plural of the word broccolo, which is from brocco, meaning a shoot or something protruding. It’s from the classical Latin broccus, the origin word for broach of all things.
 
Cabbage
Okay, one more. Cabbage showed up in the mid fifteenth century as caboge, from the Old North French caboche and Old French caboce, which both mean head, like a head of cabbage. Those words are actually form the classical Latin caput, head, and Proto Indo European kaput-, which I mentioned not long ago as being the origin word for chapter. Basically, cabbages look like heads, so that’s what we named them.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

There’s always more spam.

I 100% support the LGBTQA+ community, but no, I do not want Gay Porn or “Gay Dating News” (make up your mind which one of those things it is, because they are very different things).

Oh, I love this. You might not be able to read this, but it says “Diplomatic agent” (capitalization left intact) James Philip is conveying my “consignment box”, whatever the hell that is. It makes me laugh, until I realize there must be someone out there falling for these, and then it just makes me sad.

She’s writing me this message “with tears and sorrow”. Don’t even need to read further. It’s a cancer widow. Or possibly a girl who has been cut off from her family’s money by an evil stepmother. Either way, the exclamation point indicates she’s excited about it.

This one says I can eliminate the appearance of wrinkles in under two “minliites”. Did they… did they replace the U in minutes with an LII? Why? It doesn’t even make a U! It makes a UI!

Rest assured, this is not spam. It says so in the message.

Not just A professional network has chosen me, THE professional network. It’s okay to be jealous.

The Key Point

This always seems to happen.

Still haven’t found those suckers. I pawed through literal garbage looking for them.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetables, Part I

It’s getting to be vegetable season, so why not look at the etymology of some? Plus this will be at least another three weeks of posts, so I don’t have to come up with any ideas! I love that.

Vegetable
Vegetable itself showed up in the fifteenth century, as an adjective before it was a verb, Obviously, they had to have a word for vegetable before that, since it’s a pretty common thing; back in Old English, a vegetable was called a wyrt, the origin for wort. Vegetable also originally meant any non-animal life—so basically, vegetation—but then it changed to specifically mean a plant grown for food. It comes from the Medieval/Late Latin vegetabilis, from the classical Latin vegetare, vegetate. That’s from the Proto Indo European root weg-, to be strong or lively, the origin for words like vigor for example.

Lettuce
Next, let’s look at some actual vegetables. Lettuce showed up in the late thirteenth century as letuse, but its origins from there are a bit murky, though it’s pretty certain that it’s related to the Old French laitues and classical Latin lactuca, which means lettuce. Then you start looking at that lactuca and things get freaky. See, it’s from lac, which means… milk. Yeah. It’s from the Proto Indo European galag-, milk. Apparently, the juice of lettuce is kind of milky, so they named the plant after milk.
 

Potato
Potato is surprisingly recent. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the Spanish patata, and that’s from the Haitian word batata, sweet potato, because as it turns out, potatoes weren’t even introduced to Europe before colonization. Of all the words, I did not expect potato to be so recent—and from the Caribbean!

Pepper
Let’s see what surprises pepper has in store. It’s date of origin is unknown, though the vegetable didn’t start being referred to as such until the sixteenth century. Before that, it only referred to the spice, which comes from the Middle English peper and Old English pipor, which just means pepper. That’s from the classical Latin piper, again, just pepper, and they took that from the Greek piperi. Piperi is very likely from the Middle Indic pippari and Sanskrit pippali, because pepper was a very important trade item a thousand years ago.

Spinach

How about one more? Spinach showed up in the fifteenth century, though it actually did appear as early as the thirteenth century as a last name. It comes from the Anglo French spinache and Old French espinache, from the Old Provençal espinarc, but before that is uncertain. One theory is it comes from the Arabic isbanakh, their word for spinach, but spinach is such a weirdly prolific word and people aren’t sure whether the Arabic is the origin or if they took it from another language that has since vanished.
 
Man, even for etymology, these are some weird ones.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Yay! No more introspection! Just stupid spam!

They… didn’t even get my name right. I have to admit, “Dragomirescu” is a pretty badass name, though.

No. I will not link to your math page. I am morally opposed to math.

So is it six thousand or 3.7 million they’re sending me, the Estimate Customer?

True, printer ink is ridiculously expensive. But I’m more amused by that sixty seven digit number they threw in there. What the hell is the purpose of that?

The lesbians really want me to confirm my subscriptions. I guess if I do confirm them all, I’m five different lesbians.

…Okay, so many questions. How can an IRS loophole convert a retirement account to gold? Why would the IRS want to do that for anyone when they’re a tax agency? And really, why would anyone want to do that? You can’t go to a store and plunk down a bar of gold and expect them to accept that. Nor can you electronically transfer some gold to an online store to pay for your goods. So again, why would you ever want gold?

Gone

Granted, it wasn’t a huge loss, but still.

I still have no idea what I did.

Language Of Confusion: -Cept, Redux, Part III

Time to finish off the -cept words! Again! We’ll probably be looking at it again in another ten years or so.
 
Accept first showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French accepter and classical Latin acceptare, accept and its verb form accipere, to take or receive. Now, as I’m sure you remember from the previous weeks, the cipere is from capere, to take, catch, or seize, from the Proto Indo European kap-, to grasp. The prefix comes from ad-, to, meaning accept means to take to. Makes sense, right?
 
Except also showed up in the late fourteenth century, except (ha!) back then it was spelled excepten and it meant to receive. It comes from the Old French excepter, from the classical Latin exceptus, with the verb form excipere, which basically meant except in the sense to take something out (as in, to make an exception). That ex- means out, and with capare, the word is to take out. When you take something out, it’s an exception.
 
Next we’re looking at susceptible, as while suscept is technically a word, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used (and it doesn’t have a post on the etymology website). Susceptible showed up in the seventeenth century, coming from the Late Latin susceptibilis, which could mean capable or sustainable as well as susceptible. It’s from the classical Latin suscipere, which could mean accept as well as to take or receive. The sub- prefix means up from under, and with capere, to take, this word becomes to take from under. So susceptible is… to take from under-able? It’s weird how that almost makes sense.

 
Precept is another one that showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French percept/percet and classical Latin praeceptum, command. That’s from the verb praecipere, which is to command, from prae, before and capere. So this word is to take before. Not really sure how you get command from that, but whatever.
 
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

July Goals

That’s it, half the year is gone. That happened way too fast. What was I up to last month?
 
June Goals
1. Finish the latest WIP. It’s turned out a bit longer than I expected, but this should be easy.
Hey, I did this! Who knows when I’ll get around to editing it, but the first draft is done.
 
2. Get to work on the beta reading notes for the old WIP. This one needs a lot more work!
Did not do this. Was too busy with the other stuff. Not sure when I’ll get to this one either, but it might not be worth it at this point.
 
3. Sigh. Actually work on the editing notes for my other WIP. Maybe it’ll be possible with the other one done.
Miracle of miracles, I actually did this! I got through almost all the notes. There’s just a few pages left. I added almost five thousand words just describing things I skimmed over.
 
Next, what’s up for July…
 
July Goals
1. Finish the notes on my WIP and start a new editing pass focused on improving descriptions and reactions, because I’m really bad at this.
 
2. Update my etymology page. It’s that time again!
 
3. Start the editing notes for the new WIP. Not sure I’ll have time to get to this, but it’s on the list now so I won’t forget.
 
That’s what I want to get done this month. What are your plans for July? Is it sweltering for you too?

Background Music

Anyone else have this problem?

I’m just trying to watch a show, and I can either understand what they’re saying or not get deafened by the background music. Not both.
 
And do NOT suggest subtitles. I’m trying to watch, not read.

Language Of Confusion: -Cept, Redux, Part II

Back to doing this. Aren’t you excited?
 
There are a lot more of these words to look at, so let’s start with the last one to actually have -ceive in it. Perceive showed up in the fourteenth century, while perception showed up in the late fourteenth century—percept is also a word, if one we don’t use much, and it showed up in 1837. Perceive came to us through the Anglo French parceif and Old North French perceivre, which are from the classical Latin percipere, to perceive, and perception comes straight from the Latin perceptionem, which is the noun version of the word. As we learned last week, the -cipere part comes from capere, to grasp or take (from the Proto Indo European kap-, to grasp), and with per-, thoroughly, to perceive is to grasp thoroughly.
 
Next, contraception showed up in 1886, making it quite a recent word. Contra means against, and the -ception is actually short for conception, meaning it’s against conception. Makes sense, right? People just didn’t want to say contraconception.
 
Inception showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Old French inception and classical Latin inceptionem, to begin. Incept showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the classical Latin inceptus, beginning, and both of those words are from incipere, to begin. The in- prefix means in or on, meaning this word is… what? To take on? I guess I can see that being a beginning.
 
Finally today, intercept showed up sometime during the fifteenth century, while interception showed up in the early fifteenth century. Interception is from the classical Latin interceptionem (interception, big shocker), and intercept is from interceptus (intercept, duh), and both are from intercipere, to intercept. Inter- means between, and with capere meaning to take or seize, the word is to take between. You know, like taking something between when it’s thrown and when it’s caught. Intercepting.
 
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
Fordham University