Carriage Of Mystery

Harrowing true story.

No idea why it was there. When I was driving back, there were police cars at the house across the street (a busy two-laned road, mind you), but that’s probably unrelated. It’s so bizarre. Even weirder, my mom was driving up there the next day and the carriage was still there.

Language Of Confusion: Guarded, Part IV

Okay, this should be the last one on words descended from wer-, a Proto Indo European word meaning to perceive or watch out for. Prepare for weirdness.
 
First of all: revere. Yeah. It showed up in the mid seventeenth century, so relatively recent, though reverence came much earlier in the late thirteenth century. Revere coming from the French révérer, which just means revere, and is from the classical Latin revereri, which also just means to revere. Reverence is slightly different, coming from the Old French reverence and classical Latin reverentia, again, just reverence, and that’s also from revereri. That word is a combination of re-, probably just intensive, and vereri, to be in awe of. And that’s the one that happens to come from wer-. I guess I can see perceive/watching becoming to be in awe of, though it’s kind of a stretch.
 
And if there’s reverence, there’s also irreverence. That showed up in the mid fourteenth century—with irreverent showing up two centuries later—from the Old French irreverence and classical Latin irreverentia, which I bet you can guess where that comes from. The ir- prefix comes from in-, not or opposite of, so while reverence is awe, irreverence is the opposite of awe. How sensible.
 
Now, what other word has revere in it? Oh, just reverend. It showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning something worthy to be revered, which quickly got adopted to a member of the clergy (eyes rolling into the back of my head here). It comes from the Old French reverent/reverend, from the classical Latin reverendus, which means reverend or honored. I guess I can see the logic even if I don’t agree with it.
 
Obviously I’m going to save the best for last, and in this case, it’s the word lord. Really! It showed up in the mid thirteenth century, where it was sometimes spelled laverd or loverd, wow. That’s from the Old English hlaford, a lord, and that was supposed to be a translation of the Latin dominus, master. Hlaford itself is actually a contraction of hlafweard, which is made up of two words: hlaf, which means… bread??? Um, okay, anyway, the other half of the word is weard, which I went over weeks ago when I was talking about guard and ward, because it means guardian or watchman. A lord is a bread guard, because somehow that’s a translation of the Latin word for master.
 
I can’t even.
 
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

From The Spamfiles

Time for your weekly dose of spam.

Sometimes I have to marvel at spam because virtually the same thing is sent to me week after week with no end in sight. This week’s includes the sender being “Thank you Dear”, a not uncommon occurrence, and the always popular broken English “If you don’t respond!”

The very long underscore at the end makes it all the more legitimate.

A man of Indian descent who is an Australian by nationality who works for a Canadian company wants to give me almost fifty million dollars. Also I’m not allowed to call him, only text.
 

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that this person is offering a pretty girl for free or that for free is in quotation marks.

Got another new follower today. What do you think they want to talk to me about?

Snowfall

I suppose I can’t complain, though.

Apparently it was snowing all day and I just didn’t see it when I looked or went outside. It was invisible snow. Also you can’t feel it.

Language Of Confusion: Guarded, Part III

We’re back! Time to look at more words related to guard, which is descended from the Proto Indo European wer-, to perceive or watch out for. None of the words we’re looking at today have a G in them like guard, but at least they have a W like wer-.
 
First we’re looking at reward, which I’m pretty sure I’ve already looked at, but it was like a decade ago. I guess this makes this a redux post. Anyway! Reward showed up in the fourteenth century as a noun, while as a verb it was spelled rewarden, though both basically had the same meanings as today. Both are from the Anglo French and Old North French rewarder, which is a mix of the prefix re-, probably just intensive here, and warder, look, heed, or watch. See, in Old French, rewarder also meant to regard, which makes sense with to watch, although I really don’t get how we got reward from that.
 
Award, which we also already looked at, showed up in the late fourteenth century. Like reward, it’s from Anglo French, in this case awarder, which is from the Old North French eswarder, decide or judge. The es- is actually from ex-, out, and, well, warder. Award is to watch out… well, at least an award is something that’s judged for, so it does make sense, although I’m still surprised the a- in the word is actually form ex-.
 
Next, steward. Yes, really. It’s from wer-. It comes from the Old English steward/stigweard, which could mean something like house guardian or housekeeper. The stig meant either a hall, building, or even sty, while weard means guardian or watchman and is from wer-. And you might be saying, wait, sty? As in pigsty? Yes, as in pigsty. A steward is a sty-warden. Now you’ll never be able to forget that.
 
And speaking of warden, it showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old North French wardein, which is from the Frankish warding-. That’s from the Proto Germanic wardon, to watch or guard, and I’ve actually mentioned that before when looking at guard, because that’s where guard comes from, and it’s descended from wer-. It’s not really a surprise that guard and warden are from the same place, it’s just weird that guard has a G in it.
 
Finally today: wardrobe. Can’t wait to see how this happened to mean a place where you put clothes. It showed up in the early fourteenth century meaning a whole room where apparel was kept, and before that just a private chamber like a dressing room—it didn’t mean a movable thing of clothes until 1794. It’s from the Old North French warderobe, a dressing room or place where clothes are kept, and that’s from warder, to keep or guard. We’ve also already mentioned warder, as it’s from wardon and wer-, and it just has robe at the end. A wardrobe is a place that guards clothes.
 
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
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

Yay! First spam of 2022! Aren’t you excited?
 
Well?

We remind you the third time! Yes, poor grammar is always a good sign. As well as the random letters and numbers. Do they think it makes the spam look more legit?

I wish they’d understand that this is really not a problem I’m having. In fact, I’m pretty sure what they’re suggesting is a serious medical issue.

Wait, they want to give me a free weapon? I can’t believe a spammer is suggesting something I actually want! Sign me up, controversial California company!

So she has cancer, but doesn’t say she’s a widow. Still, I feel fairly safe in assuming she is. Well, at least as much as any of the other cancer widows who contact me are.

This is awfully harsh. Although they did decide to censor the word “fuck” for some reason, as if that is the worst swear they said. Also I can 100% guarantee I have not slept with Vanessa E.J at economicslearn.com or her friend.

Eventually

I’ll get to it eventually.

If this has been posted, clearly I got around to it.

Language Of Confusion: Guarded, Part II

This week, we continue our look at words related to guard by looking at words that look nothing like guard. But they are related! All of them come from the Proto Indo European wer-, to perceive or watch out for. All the words today have ware in them.
 
Aware comes from the Old English gewaer, aware—yes, it once had a g in it! There’s no explanation for why they dropped that letter, though. Gewaer comes from the Proto Germanic ga-waraz, where ga- is an intensive prefix and waraz, meaning wary or cautious, is from wer-. So to be aware is to be very cautious, and somehow even though a- is a prefix on its own, the a in aware is not from that. Words are so stupid sometimes.
 
Next we’re looking at beware, and I’m predicting it will be less related to aware than I think. It showed up in the thirteenth century and is thought to simply be making the phrase “be ware” into one word. That’s really it. Be- is also a prefix on its own, but that’s not what it is here. It’s the word be, which is distinct from the prefix, as the prefix is (stick with me here) from the word by. Which is not related to be. How did this word turn out to be stupider than the last one???
 
Okay, let’s look at hardware, maybe that will be less stupid. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century meaning small metal goods—referring to computers obviously didn’t come until much later, 1947—and it’s just a mix of hard and ware. As for software, you know, the non-physical parts of computers, that actually showed up in 1851, but it referred to, well, soft wares, like cotton or wool. It meant literally soft wares until 1960, where it came to mean computer programs because it was the opposite of hardware. Well, this one is much less stupid.
 
Finally today, warehouse. No big surprises here. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century as a combination of ware and house, and it was a place to house your wares. Try to wrap your brain around that one.
 
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
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary

January Goals

A bit late, but I’m sure this won’t prevent me from not completing my goals for this month. But first let’s look at my goals for December…
 
December Goals
1. Add 40K to new project. Will that finish it? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.
Did this, maybe even more than 40K. It did indeed finish the book. Well, the first draft anyway.
 
2. Keep working on those beta reads. I need more, as for some reason people have lives that don’t revolve around me.
Got some very helpful feedback, though of course I could use more. I could also be better about implementing that feedback, too!
 
3. Christmas. I’m already mentally preparing myself. Shudder.
It actually wasn’t too bad, mostly because I didn’t have to spend a lot of time with people. Ah, pandemic, how I love you for this.
 
So a pretty successful month, though I wish I did more with the beta reads. It’s always hard for me to do this stuff. As for this month…
 
January Goals
1. Actually work on the beta reading notes I have, and of course get more people to look at it.
 
2. Work on the notes I made for the new WIP.
 
3. Update my etymology page. It’s that time again!
 
That’s the plan for January, but how much of it will I complete? Probably a lot less than I want to! So what are you up to this month?

Success

Some years you have to aim low. Others you have to aim really low.

Frankly, with how many people around who don’t care about spreading COVID, this was actually harder than you might think.

Language Of Confusion: Guarded, Part I

First etymology of the new year! Aren’t you excited?
 
Guard showed up in the early fifteenth century as a noun, and then a little later as a verb. It comes from the Old French garder, to keep watch over or protect, from the Frankish wardon, from the Proto Germanic wardon, to guard. Yes, the W became a G. That’s actually common in words of French origin that were taken from Germanic. For some reason. Anyway, wardon can be traced to the Proto Indo European wer-, perceive or watch out for, the origin of just so many words that we’re going to look at over the next few weeks.
 
Regard is from the same place, although they didn’t tack on that useless U for some reason. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century meaning consider, coming from the Old French regarder, to take notice of. The re- is thought to just be intensive, while garder means look or heed and is descended from the same Germanic sources that gave us guard. To regard something is to really look at it. I’m just surprised that we’re two words in and Latin hasn’t appeared yet.
 
And that’s the last of these words with a G in them. Next, we’ll look at ware—both definitions, because referring to goods and to be aware of are from the same place. Ware as in goods comes from the Old English waru, which could mean merchandise but mostly meant guard or defense. Apparently an object you guarded became merchandise. The other ware comes from the Old English warian, to beware, and both it and waru are from the Proto Germanic waro-, from the Proto Indo European waro-, to guard or watch. Which of course is from wer-.
 
Wary is obviously from the same place, but of course it’s got to be weird. It’s just ware with a Y at the end, but it’s actually from a slightly different word. It showed up in the fifteenth century from the Old English waer, to be aware or cautious. That’s actually from the Proto Germanic waraz, so yes, ware + Y is somehow not directly from ware.
 
Finally today, we’ll look at ward. It comes from the Old English weard, which means guardian or watchman, from the Proto Germanic wardaz, guard. That’s from the Proto Indo European war-o-, which is from wer-, so it means that Proto Germanic threw a D on there and English ran with it.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
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

Resolutions 2022

Holy hell, how did it get to be 2022? Can somebody stop time for a few years so I can catch up? And of course it’s hard to think about the future when there’s so much uncertainty, what with the virus people seem to think they can ignore.
 
Ha ha, we’re all going to die. And I mean sooner rather than later.
 
Resolutions 2022
1. Write another book. Like I haven’t been doing that enough. Oh well, at least it’s an easy resolution to keep.
 
2. Finish editing the book I wrote over a year ago. You know, and stop getting distracted by Shiny New Ideas.
 
3. Edit the book I just finished writing. Because I make poor decisions.
 
4. Keep looking for ways to advance my writing. I know this one is kind of vague, but it’s basically me wanting to get better at it.
 
5. Lose some weight. Of all the resolutions I’ve ever had, this is the hardest. It’s not fair. I like food…
 
6. Continue to avoid getting sick. I made it almost two years without getting COVID, and I intend to keep it that way.
 
7. Maybe actually be on social media more. I know, this didn’t work out so well last year.
 
That is my plan for this year. Let’s see how long it takes me to screw it up.
 
What do you want for 2022?

Last Day

One last gut punch to end the year with.

I mean seriously what the hell.