We’re So Proud

Thanksgiving…wasn’t terrible? I guess it’s all being saved up for Christmas. Ugh, Christmas is coming.

But I did see my cousins, who are pretty cool. One of them showed me a sketch she did as a part of her project for her senior year of college, where she plays the "fun cop".

Her mother thought it was particularly hilarious, and makes up about a third of those views there. She might be a little biased, but I still really enjoyed it. Fun fact: every parent in the room said that better not be real coke, to which she reminded them she couldn’t afford it.

Thanksgiving Spam 3

I’m sure I’m still exhausted from Thanksgiving. You know the drill.

Well, I can’t argue with the fact that my blog is quality writing.

Damn it, I don’t have a province. I was this close to getting five million dollars!

I really hope you’re doing something about your kid’s gym teacher being a pedophile because seriously, what the hell.

Thanksgiving Spam 2

Today is Thanksgiving here and I still don’t feel like working! So spam.

That must have been one hell of a background check because I didn’t know I had a daughter.

Not really sure what this one is trying to say. I’d really like to know what “proper drainage” means in regards to blogging.

I’d kind of like to know why and how this person knows that brain washing is faster.

Thanksgiving Spam 1

It’s Thanksgiving week in the US and I don’t feel like working! So here’s some spam, from way back when I first started the Spamfiles!

One of my very first posts! The answer to this query is still “By conning people into thinking they can make $94,218 blogging”.

Uh-oh, you guys shouldn’t be looking at this! It’s legally privileged!

…You come into my house and this is how you speak to me? What did I do to deserve this disrespect?

Complications

My mom is usually in charge of the day before Thanksgiving baking, but for the first time that I remember, she has to work that day. So obviously she expects me to come over and do it, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea…

I should not be put in charge of sweets.

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part III

Okay, let’s look at words that use port as a suffix, shall we? This shouldn’t take too long, right?

Report first showed up in the late fourteenth century as a verb then a noun. Now, it has lots of meanings these days, from the results of something to an assignment and also…a loud noise. Um, no, I don’t know why. But all those definitions didn’t come until the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Before that, it just meant something you told to someone. The noun comes from the Old French report while the verb is from reporter, which in turn comes from the classical Latin reportare, to (figuratively) carry back…like you would with news, I suppose. The re- is the back part, while portare, as we learned two weeks ago when looking at portal, literally means carry. So basically, carry back went from literal to figurative, and from there to even more crazy definitions.

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering if rapport is related to report. And it is! But not as much as you might think. It showed up in the seventeenth century from the French (Modern French, that is) rapport/rapporter, which actually means report. The r comes from re- and means again and the apporter means to bring. Apportare comes from Latin, where it means bring and is actually a combo word itself! The a comes from ad-, to, and the rest is portare, which as we all know means carry. To carry back to…I guess that’s a good way to describe having a rapport with someone.

Next we’re looking at import, and related to it, important. Import showed up first in the early fifteenth century while important showed up a little later in the mid sixteenth century. These days, import is more commonly used to describe goods imported from elsewhere, but originally it was closer to important in definition. Which is funny since it comes from the classical Latin importare, which means bring in from abroad (I guess they used it to mean something else and then started using the original definition anyway). Importare is a mix of the prefix in-, into, and portare, carry. So, carry into. Makes sense, at least for the imported goods definition. Important is mostly the same, but it actually came to us by way of the Middle French important and Medieval Latin importantem, which does have the significant definition. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s where import got its other definition, although who knows who gave it that in the first place.

Since we did import, you’re probably wondering about export, too. It showed up in the early seventeenth century meaning carrying something out. It comes from the classical Latin exportare, export, which is a combination of ex-, away, and portare. Carry away. No big surprises here.

And…wow, this post is getting long and I have a lot of words left. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is going to have to go into an unprecedented fourth week. And of course next week is Thanksgiving, which means I’m going to be super busy and throwing up filler posts so you’ll have to wait until the week after that for the thrilling conclusion.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Actually Writing

You know, instead of Still Writing (for the definition of still that means stopped :P). I’ve been doing actual writing! Not editing old drafts, not fragments of ideas. Writing! And it’s pretty awesome.

I really, really like this story. Of course, if you’re writing something you don’t like, you’re doing it wrong. But still! I can’t remember the last time I felt so positively about an idea. And it hasn’t gone away in like ten seconds.

I haven’t been able to write as much as I’d like because of reasons, but it’s a start, and I’m hoping to get back to it soon. Barring any more unforeseen catastrophes. Which 2016 has made abundantly clear is going to happen a lot.

But there’s something good going on at least. Anyway, next week is Thanksgiving here (which, historically, has definitely been a source of catastrophes...ugh!), so I’m not going to be around as much. I think I’m going to do a week of Spamfiles posts.

I can sense your excitement from here.

Now I Need Aspirin

I hate doing things for my mom. Something like this always happens.

Shortly after this exchange I realized I had a headache, too. Coincidentally.

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part II

Last week, we looked at just pain port. Now let’s look at words that begin with port and see if they’re related! Ha ha, they’re not.

Portion showed up in the early fourteenth century, coming from the Old French porcion and classical Latin portionem, share. It’s actually related to the phrase pro portione, which, of course, is where we get proportion. Pro- means for here and the rest comes from partio, division. That word is related to the origin word for part. But not port.

Now let’s look at portent and portend. Portent first showed up in the mid sixteenth century while portend showed up in the early fifteenth century. Portent comes from the Middle French portent and classical Latin portentum, portent. Portend comes right from the Latin portendere, which means foretell and is the verb form of portentum. Portendere is actually a mix of the prefix pro-, forward, and tendere, to tend to or stretch (and the origin word of tenet). In other words, it’s also not related to port at all. Just another coincidence!

Portray showed up in the mid thirteenth century meaning draw or paint—so yeah, that’s where portrait originates too. It comes from the Anglo French purtraire and Old French portraire, which also means draw or paint. The word was first put together in French, por- + -traire. Both words come from Latin, por- from pro- (third time now! This time it means forth again) and traire is from trahere, pull. Pull? Really?

So none of those port words are related to port. Portable is, and it actually still has the Latin meaning of portrare/to carry. But there is one word that’s related to port and that is…Porch.

Seriously. Porch. It comes from the Old French porche and classical Latin porticus, which meant things like porch or gallery. That word comes from porta, which, as we learned last week, means gate. So it does make sense when you learn the history of it, but still. Weird.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Fordham University

The Death of Tweetdeck, Part 3

Remember how months and months ago I was looking for a replacement for Tweetdeck because they discontinued a desktop app? And I found a new one, but it kept crashing my touchpad driver so I stopped using it? And I really didn’t like the one I got to replace it because it only showed you a fixed number of tweets and just kind of sucked in general? Any of this ringing a bell?

Anyway, I got really sick of the replacement and started looking for yet another replacement. And I found one! And it’s actually really good!

It’s called Tweeten and let me break it down for you…

Pros

---Infinite scrolling for your tweets. I can’t believe there’s apps where you can’t!

---You can actually see pictures in tweets, which you couldn’t in Yoono.

---Fairly easy to figure out, especially if you remember how Tweetdeck worked.

Cons

---Can only update to Twitter, not any other platforms (if that’s really what you want).

---Not always intuitive. I don’t want to admit how long it took me to realize that you can just hit N to bring up a window to type your tweet, just like in Tweetdeck.

---Can’t hit enter to tweet. Have to it Ctrl + Enter. Like some kind of savage.

TL;DR: It’s basically a clone of Tweetdeck, and that’s why you should use it if you want it for your desktop. So yeah. Go with this. The only other con I have is that it took me so long to find it.

Laundry Day

Remember Peaches? The really cute cat who likes to sit in the laundry basket? Well, the only thing she likes better than an empty basket is a full one.

It’s like she has the magic ability to appear in any basket that I haven’t looked at for five seconds. Especially if it’s full of clean clothes.

Language of Confusion: Ports, Part I

Yes, another multi parter! There’s actually a ton of words that are port related. Way more than I thought. It’s actually going to take three posts for me to get through them all. So let’s start by looking at just plain port, which has so many versions that it’s a whole posts worth itself.

The version of port that means where ships go comes from the Old English port which means…port. Okay, no surprises there. That in turn comes from the classical Latin portus, which also (big shock) means port, and even earlier it was the Proto Indo European prtu-, a passage, and per-, to lead or pass over. And speaking of ships, the left side of one is also called port, probably just to be confusing. Apparently it was named after, and I quote, “the side facing the harbor” when the ship is docked. (-.-) Before the mid-sixteenth century, they used larboard, the opposite of starboard, instead.

The port that means portal also comes from per-, through a similar yet distinct lineage. It also used to be port in Old English, then it was the Old French porte and classical Latin porta, gate. Port also has the definition of carry attached to it, coming from the Middle French porter and classical Latin portrare, to carry. And yeah, that’s related to portus and porta.

The port that’s an alcoholic beverage has a kind of weird relationship to the others. It’s short for Oporto (or Porto), a city in Portugal which shipped the drink. And that Porto comes from port. As does the first part of Portugal. Because this ouroboros just keeps eating itself.

TL;DR: All versions of port started out as the same word, became something different, then became the same word again because language is dumb.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Old English-English 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

University of Ottawa, Canada

November Goals

Sigh…Halloween is over. Well, I remembered on time this month, so that’s something. Let’s see how I did…

October Goals

1. Update my etymology list so I don’t ignore it for a year and then have a huge amount to put in.

Hey, I did this! It’s much easier when I don’t leave it for an entire year.

2. Find some time to write! It’s going to be a busy month…

I didn’t find as much time as I would like, but I did think up a new story idea that I just love, so that’s pretty awesome.

3. HALLOWEEN!

I had lots of Halloween fun, so this is definitely checked off : ).

Did pretty good this month. I feel accomplished. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t last long.

November Goals

1. Write 10,000 words for new story idea. I don’t know if I’ll get there, but I want to aim high. So when I inevitably fail I can wallow in that much more misery.

2. Do a bunch of boring adult crap like raking the pine needles and stuff. I hate being an adult.

3. Oh god. Thanksgiving is this month. Please, no. Not that. Anything but that.

This month is going to be very, very busy. I’m not looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and fall into a coma and not wake up until 2017. Anyway, what are you up to this month?