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.