What Are The Odds?

In reality, it happened three days after my jury duty finished, but still.

She’s never had jury duty before, so that makes this all the more hilarious.

Language Of Confusion: Tense, Part IV

Still more words from the Proto Indo European root ten-, to stretch. Appropriate, as these definitions are definitely a stretch.
 
The first word we’re looking at today is hypotenuse, as in the leg of a triangle across from the right angle. It showed up in the late sixteenth century from the Late Latin hypotenusa, from the Greek hypoteinousa. That’s a mix of hypo-, which means under, and teinein, to stretch, which is from the PIE ten-. A hypotenuse stretches under—or across—from a right angle.
 
Next is the last word to actually have ten in it: lieutenant. Really! It showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning one who takes the place of another—it wasn’t a rank until a century later. It’s from the Old French lieu tenant, which means substitute or deputy, with lieu meaning place (as in, in lieu of) and tenant from the verb tenir, to hold, which is from ten-, to stretch. Now, the rank notion is that a lieutenant is the one taking the place of the captain in their absence, so the lieu part makes sense. It’s the ten part that’s weird. A lieutenant stretches in the place of a captain?
 
Also from ten- is temple—temple like the side of your forehead, as a place of worship temple might not actually be related. Forehead temple showed up in the mid fourteenth century from the Old French temple, Vulgar Latin tempula, and classical Latin tempora, meaning side of the forehead here. That’s from ten-, apparently in the sense that the temple is a thin stretch of skin on the side of your head. As for the other temple, that might be from ten- in the sense of one stretching in front of an altar in worship. Or it may be from the Proto Indo Eurpoean temp-, to cut, as in a place reserved (or cut out) for worship. Either way, it makes little sense.
 
The next word makes sense when you think about it: thin. It comes from the Old English þynne, thin, and making it the first word we’ve looked at from Germanic origins instead of Latin. Before English, it was the Proto Germanic thunni, which is from ten-, to stretch, because thin things can be stretched out.
 
Finally today, rein, which doesn’t even have a T in it. It showed up in the fourteenth century, from the Old French rene/resne, thought to be from the Vulgar Latin retina—no, not related to the eyeball word, it means bond or check here. That’s from the classical Latin retinere, to retain. So rein is from retain, it just lost the T. And now you know what we’ll be looking at next 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
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

It’s been a while.

Yeah, that’s what I want, a cheap website full of malware designed by some guy named Walter.

I’ve been selected to receive the package T-Mobile randomly ships out because companies do that stuff all the time! The trademark sign is what makes it look legit.

That welcome 43754 makes it feel like a dystopian video game where you’re trapped by a rogue AI trying to kill you and you have to make it through a series of increasingly elaborate traps.

This is obviously several months old. Remember when an earthquake was the worst thing the world was dealing with? I miss that.

A DM I received on Tumblr. No, this isn’t a porn bot at all. (Eyeroll emoji)

Language Of Confusion: Tense, Part III

Even more words descended from the Proto Indo European root ten-, to stretch. Today these words… well, they’re quite a stretch.
 
Tone for example is not something you’d think was related to tense. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century meaning a musical sound, then a manner of speaking in the seventeenth century and shortly after the “firmness of body”. It comes from the Old French ton and classical Latin tonus, just tone, and before that the Greek tonos, also tone (and tuna fish, which is certainly related). And yeah, tune is from the same place, literally called an “unexplained variant” of tone. A tone is a sound, though, while a tune is a bunch of tones.
 
There are also a few variants, like baritone, which showed up in the seventeenth century from the Italian baritono, from the Greek barytonos. Barys translates to heavy or deep, so with tonos, a baritone is a deep tone.
 
Then there’s tonic—yes, like a potion or medicine. When it first showed up in the mid seventeenth century, it actually meant relating to muscle tension, meaning it’s the first one of these words to make sense as being related to tense. By the end of the century it started to mean relating to healthy muscles, then in the mid eighteenth century shifted to mean something that restores to health. It comes from the Greek word tonikos, tonic, which is from tone, which is from ten-. Still no explanation as to how a tone relates to stretching, but there you go.
 
There are a few variants on that, too. Isotonic is relatively recent, having shown up in 1776 (there’s actually a section of my grocery store labeled isotonics in spite of Microsoft telling me that’s not a word). It’s also from Greek, isotonos, with the prefix meaning equal or identical. An isotonic is an identical tone. Plus there’s catatonic, which showed up in 1899 (catatonia having shown up in 1888). It’s from the Latin catanoia, with the cata- prefix coming from the Greek kata, against, and meaning down in this case. Catatonia is… to tone down???
 
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

Bridge

True story that took place at the beginning of December. You know, just in time for the end of year holidays.

That’s really what it said. “At risk of catastrophic failure”. Hope no one has to go anywhere for the next three months. And they actually do fix it in that timeframe.

Language Of Confusion: Tense, Part II

We’re back looking at words related to tense by way of the Proto Indo European root ten-, to stretch. A lot of these things do stretch. But certainly not all of them.
 
The first word we’re going to look at this week is tendril, which is a neat descriptive word that literally means a “threadlike, leafless organ of climbing plants”. It’s a botany term that showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the French tendrillon, which means tendon. It’s from the Old French tendre, soft, the origin word for tender, which we looked at not too long ago. That’s from classical Latin, either tendere, to tend to, or tener, soft, both of which come from the PIE ten-.
 
Next, tenuous showed up in the late sixteenth century. It’s from the classical Latin tenuis, thin, and that’s from ten-. It actually used to literally mean thin before it shifted into the figurative meaning in 1817, and… that’s really it. This one was very straightforward. Unusual, isn’t it?
 
Now it’s time to get into the more WTF ones. Tenet, for example. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin tenet, which means (he) holds. That’s from tenere, to hold, which is from ten- even if it doesn’t quite make sense. The Etymology page says the connection between stretch and hold is “cause to maintain”, and then it was used in Medieval Latin in relation to doctrine, but I still don’t quite get it.
 
The word tenure is actually from the same place. It showed up in the early fifteenth century, from the Anglo French/Old French tenure, Old French tenir, Vulgar Latin tenire, and finally also tenere, because a tenure is something that’s held. Fun fact, it didn’t start being used as tenure of an office until 1957. Also from tenere is tenacity, which also showed up in the early fifteenth century, from the Old French ténacité and classical Latin tenacitas, which is an offshoot of tenere. Well, tenacity is holding onto something and refusing to let go.
 
Finally today is tetanus—yes, the infection. It showed up in the late fourteenth century from the classical Latin tetanus, which means… tetanus. It’s from the Greek tetanos, which originally meant a muscle spasm. It’s from teinein, to stretch, because of the spasms and stiffness of the muscles, and that word is of course from ten-. Another one that weirdly makes sense.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
Dictionary.com
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
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

January Goals

Oh, how did this happen? How is it 2024? This is wrong. Worse, this is an election year! AAAAAAAAAA!
 
December Goals
1. Finish my WIP.
Yay, I did this! It needs so much work before it’s readable by other humans, but the first draft is done!
 
2. Keep editing and posting my web serial.
Thankfully, this was also easy.
 
3. The holidays! Maybe they won’t be bleak and full of despair!
Meh, they were kind of. The countdown to the new year was more of a death march.
 
Ugh, January. UGH, 2024.
 
January Goals
1. Work on some old projects to recharge enough to edit.
 
2. Update my etymology page again. Remember when this didn’t used to be torture?
 
3. UGH! Jury Duty! Hopefully I won’t get picked, because that would suck. And have I mentioned the bridge that I have to take to the courthouse is partially closed?
 
This month is going to be hell from number 3 alone. I’m not even sure I’ll have time to visit blogs today (or yesterday for that matter, because that was when the jury duty started). This year has started like a kick to the head. What do you want to accomplish this month?

Language Of Confusion: Feeling Tense, Part I

As usual with the start of the new year, it’s time to start a big multi-part series that lasts for weeks! I can sense your excitement from here!
 
In this series, we’re going to look at words related to tense, which I’ve already done but could use redoing at my current standards. Tense is also related to words like attend and tendon—which I’ve also already done, but only a few years ago, so we won’t be looking at those. However there are still many, many more to busy ourselves with.
 
First, tense showed up as a noun first in the early fourteenth century, referring to the grammatical sense, as in a tense of verb, which comes from the Old French tens, time or occasion, which is from the classical Latin tempus, yes, as in time. Tense as in stretched tight showed up in the mid seventeenth century, then tense as a verb showed up just after that, both from the classical Latin tensus, tense, and its verb form tendere. You might be thinking this is another etymological coincidence, but nope, tempus and tensus are related, both coming from the Proto Indo European root ten-, to stretch. Because a stretch of time is something that can be measured, see?
 
Intense showed up in the early fifteenth century, meaning great or extreme, then in the seventeenth century meaning people who are high-strung. It’s from the Old French intense, from the classical Latin intensus, intense. That’s from the verb intendere, but taken very literally. The in- is from en-, meaning in or toward, and the rest is from tendere, to stretch. Also related are intend (which we already looked at) and intent, which showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Old French entent/entente, from the Latin intentus, which means intent or, literally, stretching out.
 
Speaking of words ending in -tent, content showed up in the early fifteenth century, first meaning to be satisfied, with the definition of thing being contained (as in the content of this blog) showing up in the early fifteenth century. The first content is from the Old French contenter, Medieval Latin contentare, and classical Latin contentus, while the second content is from contentum, and both are from continere, to contain. The con- means with or together, while the rest is from tenere, to hold, another word from ten-.
 
Finally today we have extensive, which is related to extend, a la intend, but doesn’t have a -tense version. It showed up in the seventeenth century, first relating to immaterial things, then a century later also material things. It’s from the Late Latin extensivus, from the classical Latin extendere, to extend. Fairly straightforward, though I still think it’s weird there’s no extense.
 
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

Resolutions 2024

Yeah I guess I’m doing this again. It’s something that fills a post slot, even if I don’t actually follow through.
 
1. Edit the book I wrote at the end of last year. I already know it needs a ton of work.
 
2. Edit the web serial to version 2 and post that.
 
3. Work on being more out there and pushing my stuff, even if it’s really, really hard.
 
4. Write a new book, perhaps the sequel to last year’s book.
 
5. Find something new to post online. I have several old stories that might work.
 
6. Try not to melt into a puddle of anxiety as the election looms. No big deal, it’s just between people with no spine and those who want to see me dead. I hate this! I never envisioned my life this way, make it stop!
 
7. Try to keep better track of my goals for this year (yeah, right).
 
Ha ha, 2024 is going to be a nightmare!!! What do you want for this year?