Cane

I really have an endless amount of stories about my mom.

It could not have been more of a blind-guy stereotype if he’d been led by a dog.

Language Of Confusion: Tools

Hey, I haven’t done these before. I think it’ll be a nice breather before I go into another long multi-part series.
 
Tool
Tool comes from the Old English tol, which means an instrument or implement—so a tool. It’s from the Proto Germanic towalan. That’s really all that’s known about the origin of tool, but it’s worth noting that tool as slang for penis showed up in the 1550s, and I just found it so amusing that it’s that old.
 
Hammer
Hammer comes from the Old English hamor, which, no big surprise, just means hammer, they’ve probably needed things to hit other things since the dawn of humanity. It’s from the Proto Germanic hamaraz, which might be from the Proto Indo European ka-mer-, from akmen, a sharp stone used as a tool. It does make perfect sense that hammer would be from there, but you know how these etymologies can be. It’s just as likely to be completely unrelated.

 
Nail
Can’t do hammer without doing nail. It comes from the Old English naegel, nail, and yes, that is where the nail part of fingernail comes from, too. It’s from the Proto Germanic naglaz, from the Proto Indo European (o)nogh, which meant a fingernail. Yes, fingernail is the original, while the metal spike came later! Which makes sense since we had fingers long before we needed metal nails.
 
Saw
Of course, the saw you use to cut would is not related to if you saw something with your eyes. The cutting tool comes from the Middle English saue and Old English sagu, from the Proto Germanic sago, and the Proto Indo European root sek-, to cut. And for some reason we also made the past tense of to see saw, because English is stupid.
 
Screw
Screw showed up in the fifteenth century (an actual date! Vague as it might be), coming from the Old French escröe/escroue, a cylindrical socket. It’s origins before there aren’t really known as there are several similar words in other languages, but the fact that Vulgar Latin has scrobis, which means a “screw-head groove”, and also a trench in classical Latin, kind of makes me lean toward that as an origin. Though I’m amused and horrified that some people think it’s from the Latin scrofa, which means sow, because a screw apparently looks like a pig’s penis, and why is this the second time I’ve had to type that word this week?
 
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

From The Spamfiles

Last one of the month? Man, I hate February.

Yeah, PayPal is always giving away a thousand dollars to its users. Also, why the hell is the H in hello in brackets???

The formatting on this one is so weird. It was like it was written in Notepad or something because every word on the right is cut off. Also this was an unusual one that showed up in my Inbox instead of in my spam folder, so I accidentally clicked on it. And hey, it’s 100% risk free.

It’s absolutely an accident* that you unsubscribed and received more unwanted messages. (*totally on purpose and now your computer has a virus)

Huh, I don’t remember sending this to myself and calling myself Sir Edward, but what other explanation is there?

This looks too spammy to be from Facebook. But just barely.

What Usually Happens

The heart wants what it wants.
 

There is a vast difference between what I should be doing and what I am doing.

Language Of Confusion: Floral

This week, we’re looking at flower, and words related to it. I guess this is kind of Vegetation, Part III.
 
Flower itself showed up in the thirteenth century as both a noun (the flower of a plant) and a verb (to thrive). It comes from the Old French flor, same meaning, and classical Latin florem, which is just flower. That can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European bhel-, to thrive or bloom—there are actually two other bhel-s, but they have completely separate definitions. The bhel- that gave us flower also gave us all the other words we’re going to look at today, as well as a bunch of others I’m going to have to go over eventually.
 
Flour is, in a rather unsurprising turn of events, from the same place. It showed up in the mid thirteenth century and came from flower—flour in fact was one of the many spelling variants of flower before it got codified as flower. They’re not really sure why ground grain came to be called flour when it has nothing to do with flowers, though apparently flour was the “finest part” of grain and that might have something to do with flowers or something. I don’t know, words are stupid.
 
Also related is flourish, which showed up in the fourteenth century meaning to blossom or grow, and then also meaning brandishing a weapon in the late fourteenth century, and embellishment in the seventeenth century because… well, because. Flourish comes from the Old French floriss and its verb form florir, from the classical Latin florere, to flourish, the verb of florem. Floral is from the same place, having shown up in the mid seventeenth century from the Latin floralis, floral. Flora is older, but back when it showed up in the sixteenth century it only meant the Roman goddess of flowers, while it didn’t mean plant life until 1777. Flora is just flora in Latin, and that’s from flos, flower, and of course bhle-.
 
Now let’s look at something the same but different: bloom. It showed up in the thirteenth century and is probably Scandinavian in origin, and definitely descended from the Proto Germanic blomon. Abd where does that come from? From bhel-, of course. Just with no Latin involved. Blossom is pretty similar, also having shown up in the thirteenth century. It comes from the Old English blostm, flower, from the Proto Germanic blo-s-, and that’s from bhlow-, another form of bhel-.
 
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

Spam again!

I don’t want them to need to have sex with me.

Noom??? Did they just spell moon backwards for their “not a diet”?

Yes, eBay is always calling their customers “Hi, Dear!” Also they spell invoice with a 0.
 

I never get any really funny spam blog comments. Only people trying to get me to gamble.

But he’s not spamming. He did all this for free because that’s great business practice.

Widen To Reveal

Things like this happen more than I care to admit.

Seriously I was three feet away.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetation, Part II

More stuff that grows out of the ground!
 
Shrub comes from the Old English scrybb, which means a woody plant—I’m not sure how it was pronounced or if that’s a hard C or a soft one. It actually predates shrubbery, which showed up in 1748 and is just shrub + -ery. As for its origins… no one knows. It might be Scandinavian, as there are similar words in Danish and Norwegian (skrubbe—as in, scrub). But hell, scrub, as in what you call bushes, might not even be from there. Words are so stupid sometimes.
 
Foliage showed up in the mid fifteenth century, possibly the first of these words with an actual date. Although amusingly enough, it was actually spelled ffoylage, and that is spelled just so much cooler. It also has a murky origin, though it’s probably related to the Old French feuille, which means foliage, and the classical Latin folium, leaf.
 
Sprig showed up in the fifteenth century and its origins are absolutely positively—I’m just kidding, they’re not sure about this one either. It’s probably related to an Old English word, spraec, which means shoot or twig here. And with an unknown origin.
 
Sprout comes from the Old English asprutan, to sprout. It’s from the Proto Germanic sprut-, from the Proto Indo European spreud-, from sper-, to stew. Well, at least this one has an origin. I was beginning to think none of these did!
 
Finally today, shoot. Like an offshoot, not firing a gun. Though the two words are somehow related. Shoot the plant showed up in the mid fifteenth century, and it came from shoot the verb, though come on, hurling missiles at something also means a young plant? Seriously, where’s the logic in that one? Okay, maybe I can see it being thrown off of a bigger plant, but come on! As for shoot’s origin, it comes from the Old English sceotan, like I said, to hurl missiles at. That’s from the Proto Germanic skeutanan, from the Proto Indo European skeud-, to shoot or throw.
 
Yeesh.
 
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

Spam is much better than introspection.

This spam promises to stop sending you spam if you click this link. Go ahead! Try it!

Um, okay. Wow. Lot of questions. First of all, how I found this person’s ass? WHAT? Then she calls herself “Lina from Sex services” and it’s a no. Just no. And how your feeling GOOD OR NOT GOOD. And I know that’s supposed to be “you’re” but I’m betting Lina from Sex services doesn’t.
 

Okay these don’t even look like letters. What the hell. I have to Thecl Nour Uccounl for my Clols of Begas Tasino Banout Berification.
 

I really don’t want to know anything “Fungus Eli.” has to say.
 

Liar! My blog has never helped anyone ever!

After The Blizzard

Huh, I’m not actually in this one.

Jasper has not asked to go outside since then.

For reference, this is how deep it was a couple days after the blizzard:

Language Of Confusion: Vegetation, Part I

This is basically another redux post since I’m pretty sure I’ve done these at some point, but I can’t begin to make myself care. It wasn’t in the past few years, so it’s good.
 
Plant comes from the Old English plante, so plant with an e on the end. That’s from the classical Latin planta, plant and that’s thought to be from the verb plantare which means to plant but also “to drive in with the feet”. I mean… that has to be where it’s from, right? You’re not exactly driving them in with your feet, but I can see seeds being planted that way. Anyway, plantare comes from the Proto Indo European plat-, to spread. Also, fun fact, plat- is also where plantar, as in the sole of the foot, comes from.
 
Bush comes from the Old English bysc, which was actually used in place names rather than being an actual word for plant life. Back when the British Empire had colonies in the mid seventeenth century Americas, an uncleared area was referred to as a bush, and somehow it started to refer to just bushes. Anyway, bysc comes from the West Germanic busk, a bush or thicket, from the Medieval Latin busca. No one knows where it came from before that, but it’s thought to be from some Germanic source. It’s just weird because usually it’s the Germanic languages stealing from Latin rather than the other way around.
 
Now let’s look at brush, which I’m sure isn’t related at all, because this is etymology. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century, coming from the Anglo French bruce, brushwood. That’s from the Old North French broche and Old French broce, and before that it was the Gallo Roman brocia. Is it related to the brush that you use on hair? Well, maybe. That word was also broce in Old French. But it also might be from the word brucus, which means heather, and so it being the same as the other brush might just be coincidence. And that totally never happens with etymology.
 
Tree comes from the Old English treo/treow, which means tree or a plant made of wood. It’s from the Proto Germanic trewam and an be traced to the Proto Indo European drew-o-, which is from deru-, to be firm or solid. The fun fact for this one is that the word tree used to refer to oak trees specifically because that’s how important they were.
 
Finally today, seed comes from the Old English saed, seed of course. It comes from the Proto Germanic sediz, from the Proto Indo European se-ti-, from se-, to sow. How refreshingly straightforward. I can’t even think of a joke to end this on.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

February Goals

Well, I sure as hell didn’t get anything done this month. At least, nothing I was supposed to.
 
January Goals
1. Actually work on the beta reading notes I have, and of course get more people to look at it.
HA HA HA HA HA HA no. Every time I tried I was just like, UGHHHHH, this is terrible, why bother?
 
2. Work on the notes I made for the new WIP.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. I know I should, but for some reason I just couldn’t make myself sit down and do it.
 
3. Update my etymology page. It’s that time again!
Well, I suppose I at least did this, although to my eternal frustration I cannot get the formatting right. It used to come out PERFECT in old blogger, and I could just copy it from an Excel spreadsheet and use the paragraph button to adjust the spacing. Now, NEITHER of those things are possible, because new blogger is out to get me and specifically me.
 
Yeah, January was a failure in the “do stuff I’m supposed to do” department. I’m not sure February will be any better, but…
 
February Goals
1. Actually do the editing notes for my new WIP. I really want to do this so I can start sharing it, because I honestly have no idea what to do with it and need some advice.
 
2. Actually do the beta reading notes. If it’s not too much trouble.
 
3. Work on something fun, maybe a new WIP. Because that will solve all my problems.
 
Wow. I’m really being passive aggressive to myself. I hope I take the hint.
 
What do you want to do this month? Anyone else hating snow as much as I am? Or wish new blogger had an option to adjust paragraph spacing?