Names

It gets hard to keep up.

These names were accurate at the time I wrote this comic, but they’ve probably changed by now.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetables, Part III

Ready for more of this?
 
Celery
Celery showed up in the mid seventeenth century as sellery, which in my opinion is the superior spelling and we should go back to it. And yes, there was a word for before then—two in fact, the Middle English ache and selinum. It comes from the French céleri, which is thought to be from a particular Italian dialect, where it is seleri. That’s from the Late Latin selinon, which is from the Greek selinon, an old word for parsley. I guess this one makes sense. Except for why the French had to ruin it by spelling it with a C.
 
Asparagus
Asparagus showed up in the late fourteenth century as aspergy, and I just find that word hilarious. It comes from the Old English sparage, which is from the classical Latin asparagus, which yes, means that this word actually became more like its origin word over the years. I guess there’s a first time for everything. Fun fact, aspartame comes from asparagus. I mean the word, although the chemical is found in asparagus, too.
 
Bean
Bean comes from the Old English bean, which means… bean. That’s from the Proto Germanic bauno, and its origin before that is unknown, although it might be related to the Proto Indo European bha-bha-, which means broad bean. But you know etymology rarely makes sense.
 
Turnip
Turnip showed up in the sixteenth century as turnepe. Its origin is kind of weird. First of all, it’s related to turn. It’s actually a combination of turn and the Middle English nepe, so turn + nepe = turnip. Nepe is from the Old English naep and classical Latin napus, which means turnip. As to why they decided to throw turn in there, I have no idea.
 
Cucumber
This one showed up all the way back in the late fourteenth century as cucomer, coming from the Old French cocombre and classical Latin cucumerem, which just means cucumber. Fun fact of this one, cucumber replaced the word eorðaeppel, which literally means earth-apple.
 
Radish
One more today because these have been pretty short. Radish comes from the Middle English radich and Old English raedic, which just means radish. It’s from the classical Latin radicem, which meant radish, but also more generally root, and is from the Proto Indo European wrad-, branch or root. Always weird when the etymology is logical.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Spam!

Is… this really a thing? Copper infused socks? What the hell are they supposed to do???

Boy, they really want me to unsubscribe. I suppose their harassment is slightly less intrusive than visiting a blog and immediately getting a popup to sign up for their newsletter.

The Network is still after me! It’s apparently the network professional network. You must know them.

Using different fonts makes it much more legitimate.

I get a lot of spam from casinos these days. Not sure what I signed up for that sold my email address to these online casinos I have to assume are completely fake, but there you go.

As you can see here, I’m apparently sending these to myself. First it says I’m going to receive 250 emails a day (oof), from “all catagorie” (ooooof), and then it tells me not replying is considered a yes. These spammers threaten hard.

Sick

More actual conversations I’ve had with my mom. She… provides a lot of fodder for these stories.

Seriously, her argument for him being sick was that the usually hyperactive cat was walking around at the pace of a normal cat. And for the record, he’s fine.

Language Of Confusion: Vegetables, Part II

There are still a lot more vegetables to look at. Seriously, this particular series could go on for weeks.
 
Corn
Don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but what’s called corn in America isn’t called corn anywhere else. Wheat, oats, and other grains are corn, and American corn is called maize, which is what indigenous Americans called it. There’s no real reason why we Americans insist on calling it corn, especially when you look at the history of the word. In Old English, corn means wheat, from the Proto Germanic kurnam, which means small seed and comes from the Proto Indo European gre-no-, grain, which is unsurprisingly the origin of grain. And for the record, the corn that has to do with the horns of animals, like as part of unicorn? Not related at all. But you know what that word is related to?
 
Carrot
Carrot showed up sometime in the sixteenth century, coming from the French carrotte and classical Latin carota. They got that from the Greek karoton, carrot, and that’s thought to come from the above mentioned ker-, which also gave us carat and its variant karat. Because carrots are shaped like horns, and that’s basically what that kind of corn is.
 
Pea
As a word, pea showed up in the seventeenth century from the Middle English pease, and apparently people dropped the S because they thought it sounded plural, even though pease is actually singular. Yeah, language is stupid like that sometimes. It’s from the Old English pise/poise, which is from the Late Latin pisa, and that’s from the classical Latin pisum, peas, which might be from the Greek pison, pea—makes sense, what didn’t the Romans steal from the Greeks? And that’s the earliest we can trace it.
 
Broccoli
Broccoli is relatively recent, having shown up in the late seventeenth century from the Italian broccoli. Funnily enough, that’s actually a plural of the word broccolo, which is from brocco, meaning a shoot or something protruding. It’s from the classical Latin broccus, the origin word for broach of all things.
 
Cabbage
Okay, one more. Cabbage showed up in the mid fifteenth century as caboge, from the Old North French caboche and Old French caboce, which both mean head, like a head of cabbage. Those words are actually form the classical Latin caput, head, and Proto Indo European kaput-, which I mentioned not long ago as being the origin word for chapter. Basically, cabbages look like heads, so that’s what we named them.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

There’s always more spam.

I 100% support the LGBTQA+ community, but no, I do not want Gay Porn or “Gay Dating News” (make up your mind which one of those things it is, because they are very different things).

Oh, I love this. You might not be able to read this, but it says “Diplomatic agent” (capitalization left intact) James Philip is conveying my “consignment box”, whatever the hell that is. It makes me laugh, until I realize there must be someone out there falling for these, and then it just makes me sad.

She’s writing me this message “with tears and sorrow”. Don’t even need to read further. It’s a cancer widow. Or possibly a girl who has been cut off from her family’s money by an evil stepmother. Either way, the exclamation point indicates she’s excited about it.

This one says I can eliminate the appearance of wrinkles in under two “minliites”. Did they… did they replace the U in minutes with an LII? Why? It doesn’t even make a U! It makes a UI!

Rest assured, this is not spam. It says so in the message.

Not just A professional network has chosen me, THE professional network. It’s okay to be jealous.

The Key Point

This always seems to happen.

Still haven’t found those suckers. I pawed through literal garbage looking for them.