Ivy

Not actually sure this is poison ivy, just noticed the “leaves of three”. I’m definitely not touching it, though.

Cardinal

It’s brown, so obviously a female, but it was definitely a cardinal.

Collapsed

How I feel right about now.

From The Spamfiles

My birthday’s on Thursday! So after this, I am taking a break from the internet for a week or so. Of course there will still be posts for you to scroll past in your RSS feed. Probably cat pictures. But until then, spam!

What an oddly specific number. Not $10,000, not $8,000, not $8,500, but $8,588. I really want to know why that number in particular. Also why they have a \ in between you’re there. That’s just weird.

Okay, what even is that font? It’s fancy and loopy and I must have it before the toxic mold in my house apparently kills me.

They have a surprise for me! I assume the surprise is adding spaces between the letters of words while deleting them from spaces between words.

The WORLD OF PORN! You know you want to click. The message in the body says, in French no less, “tribute to the talents of the city”. So this is a high class world of porn.
 

I am instantly suspicious of someone who spells “Madison” with two S’s.

Acenett is back!!!!!! He’s so confident in his scam he can tell me it’s spam even in the address line!
 
That’s it. I’m out until the seventh. Later!

Gifts

Well, it is almost my birthday.

I’m not even kidding. Right in the middle like it was left for me.

Language Of Confusion: -Tempt, Redux

Another redo, since it’s easier than coming up with original ideas and I’m totally sliding into vacation mode.
 
Tempt showed up in the thirteenth century, specifically meaning to tempt someone to sin before coming into more general use. It comes from the Old French tempter and classical Latin temptare, to test. That’s actually from another Latin word, tentare, which also just means test; they just changed the N to MP for no discernable reason.
 
Attempt showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French atempter/atenter. Yes, more of that N-MP switch. It’s from the classical Latin attemptare, to try, a mix of ad-, to, and temptare, to test—and since a try is a type of test, this word is kind of redundant. To try to is definitely an attempt, though.
 
Contempt also showed up in the late fourteenth century, originally referring only to disobedience of law or authority before being adapted to a more general use in the next century. It comes from the Old French contempt and classical Latin contemptus, which means contempt or scorn. That’s from the verb contemnere, to despise, a mix of the prefix com-, thought to be intensive here, and temnere, scorn. But as you might notice, temnere is not related to temptare. Contempt is not related to the other tempt words at all!
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

From The Spamfiles

Let’s see what ripe, juicy spam I have for you this week.
 

I don’t know, guys, what do you think? Does fat make you fat? Or am I thinking of thin? Also, what is with the line through the address? That’s just weird.

Big surprise, they want me to link to them. Besides the fact that that name is ridiculous (Tutoo???), the post they’re asking me to put the link on (which got cut off here, sorry) is from nearly ten years ago. I’m thinking you’re not going to get much traffic from that.

This might be the first time I’ve seen random quotes used accurately, since as we all know, this reminder is definitely not real.

These guys again. Even if I owned a home, I’m not selling it for cash over the internet. Because I’m not stupid.

Rosita is interested in me! You might not be able to make it out, but her email address is apparently rosita.dimbo@something.com. Dimbo! That’s just hilarious.

Well, the name Acenett M Vasquez is absolutely the winner of the week here. Great name or greatest name?
 
The answer is greatest. Clearly the greatest.

Betrayal

Another story about my mom.

I know a lot of you were all like, “Why would your mom ever hide a book on your shelf?” I told you my mom was weird! It’s not my fault none of you believed me!

Language Of Confusion: -Flict, Redux

Another redo this week, and a fairly short one to boot. My mind is definitely already checked out on vacation.
 
Conflict showed up in the early fifteenth century, coming from the classical Latin conflictus, which is just conflict. Shocking, I know. It’s a mix of the prefix con-, with or together, and fligere, to beat or strike. So a conflict is when you and someone else are striking each other together? I guess that makes sense.
 
Afflict showed up in the late fourteenth century, but back then it meant to cast down, and it didn’t mean to be afflicted with something until the early sixteenth century. It comes from the classical Latin afflictare, to afflict, a mix of the prefix ad-, to, and fligere. To afflict is to strike to. I guess when you’re afflicted with something, it strikes you.
 
Inflict showed up in the mid sixteenth century, and it’s pretty much the same as the other two. It comes from the classical Latin inflectus, from infligere, to inflict. The in- is, well, in, so with fligere, it’s to strike in. Um, sure. Whatever.
 
And there is one more word we’re going to look at, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked at it before. That word is… profligate. Yes, it’s a word. It showed up in the early sixteenth century, making it older than inflict. Originally it meant overthrown or defeated, but then sometime in the late eighteenth century it started to mean recklessly immoral, which is its current definition. It comes from the classical Latin profligatus, defeated, from profligare, to defeat or cast down. The pro- means down or forth, so profligate is to strike down. I’ve never heard or seen this word used, so it can have any definition it wants.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
Dictionary.com

From The Spamfiles

Spam time!

Take a look at one of my most recent followers. They joined August 2021, have no tweets, call themself “Master” and yet have “Humble” in their bio, and are shockingly not followed by anyone I’m following. Nope, nothing wrong here.

The Network wants me again. Wasn’t that a movie? It feels like that was a movie. Probably not a good one.

I don’t believe in psychics, but I still find the idea of giving someone a psychic reading over the internet laughably absurd.

Yes, if you want to sell your home, you should definitely do so over the internet for a pile of cash. Which you can then send to the internet psychics.

I don’t know if you can make it out, but for some reason, it says “otra pruebba” in this debt relief spam. I looked it up, and apparently it’s Spanish for “another test”. I suppose I should tell them their test didn’t work since I’m obviously not falling for their scam. It’s the polite thing to do.

Okay, this one is just… I don’t know. Off. It says “Not a risk to you… But a big risk to me…” and I have no idea how that’s even possible. Is it some kind of curse where the flatter my stomach gets, the bigger theirs gets? I’m also weirded out by the “my mission in life for as long as I can remember has been to SERVE”. Seriously, buddy, get a life of your own.

Unobservant

This isn’t the first time my mom has done stuff like this.

It took an embarrassingly long amount of time for me to find it. My mom doesn’t even remember how long ago it was, but definitely months. The worst part? I dusted that bookshelf like a week earlier, and still didn’t notice the book that looks completely different from every other book I have.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetables, Part IV

More vegetables! What can I say, there are a lot of them. This should be the last part, at least until I remember something else I should have thrown in here.
 
Cauliflower
I’ve never had cauliflower and I’m never going to. Anyway, it showed up in the late sixteenth century, where it was originally cole florye, from the Italian cavoli fiori, literally cabbage flower. The fiori can be traced all the way back to the origin word for flower, the Proto Indo European bhel-, while the cavoli comes from the classical Latin caulis, which means stems or cabbage, and that’s from the PIE root kehuli-, stem or stalk. Fun fact for this one, the word cole is the old word for cabbage and the reason coleslaw is called coleslaw. It also comes from caulis and kehuli-. Though as you might recall from a few weeks ago, cabbage does not.
 
Kale
Kale—or as my mother calls it, roofing material—is from the same place as cole. It showed up in the fourteenth century, and leafy green vegetables were called “kale” in Scottish and northern English, so the word survived because of there and was transferred to a plant other than cabbage. Though equally disgusting.
 
Beet
Beet comes from the Old English bete, which just means beet or beetroot. It’s from the classical Latin beta, beet, and the origin of that is uncertain, although it might be Celtic. Which wouldn’t surprise me. The Romans stole everything, even their mythology.
 
Shallot
A shallot is a small onion (and I etymologized onion long ago), though for some reason, I can never remember what a shallot actually is and have to look it up. It showed up in the mid seventeenth century as short for eschalot, which is from the French échalote/eschalotte, which is just, you know, shallot. It’s from the Old French eschaliogne, from the Vulgar Latin escalonia, which is the origin word for scallion, another type of onion. It feels weirdly apt considering onion actually comes from the word union.
 
Yam
Finally in our look at vegetables, yam. It showed up as we spell it in the late seventeenth century, although it really showed up earlier, in the late sixteenth century as igname. It’s from either the Portuguese inhame or Spanish igname, and those words are West African in origin. Are yams West African??? I’m going to have to look that up…
 
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

August Goals

Man, it’s August. On one hand, it’s my birthday month, yay! On the other hand, how did it get to be August already?
 
Anyway, goals…
 
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.
Wow, I completed this. I made five hundred notes about things to improve and fixed most of them. I’m still not sure the book is any good, but hopefully the descriptions are better.
 
2. Update my etymology page. It’s that time again!
Did this, too! I also changed the colors to make it a little more friendly on the eyes. Still can’t get rid of those spaces, though. I might actually have to start splitting up the words into separate pages. Maybe that’ll stop it from crashing every time I try to edit it.
 
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.
And, amazingly, I’m working on this too. I needed a break from the WIP after finishing #1, so I went back to this one.
 
Surprisingly accomplished month in terms of writing, considering how stressful it was otherwise. Seriously, July 2021, go jump off a cliff. Now for August…
 
August Goals
1. Finish my editing notes on WIP 2 and hopefully get to work on them (we’ll see).
 
2. Get back to WIP 1 and again, work on the descriptions. I like the premise so much and think it’s really unique, and I just want the writing to live up to what I’m going for.
 
3. BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY.
 
Have I mentioned it’s my birthday month? What do you want to do this August?