Tuesday, November 30, 2021

From The Spamfiles

Time for some post-Thanksgiving spam. Because we haven’t had enough of that.

I don’t think these people know how to use question marks.

No, no, it’s an Amzon card. You’re thinking of the other place.

I got to admit, the tongue emoji really freaks me out.
 
So many questions on this one. First of all the “felicidades” is kind of a weird opening. Next is the fact that saying you’re from “California, USA” is not how humans talk. Finally, they’re a “Crypto trader” and we can all agree that this is the scamiest scam that ever scammed.

Oh, yes, this is super legit. All I ever do is share “fitness resources” on this blog. My audience would definitely find it valuable, that’s why you guys come back here, isn’t it? My fitness resources?

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Spamfiles Classics 3

I should be back Tuesday! Probably!

First of all, those things aren’t mutually exclusive. Second of all, way to prey on people’s insecurities, spammers.

You go ahead and enjoy all that tasty knowledge. It’s been deep fried.

When you’re telling someone off, obviously you open with a “Hi” and their email address name.

Yeah, if you want your family to survive, definitely go building an assault rifle yourself. Smart!

It just wouldn’t be spam if there wasn’t at least one cancer widow. I love how she specifies that his “brief illness” lasted five days, because that’s an important detail. Somebody has to help her before her adorpted son steals all the money away from her!

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Spamfiles Classics 2

I’m reminded of spamming trends long since replaced by other, more obnoxious spamming trends.

Anyone else alarmed at what they’re doing in my stomach???

If it can’t blind a bear, it’s not a flashlight. Also, does anyone else think blinding a bear isn’t an impressive measure? They’re strong, but it’s not like they’re renowned for having amazingly powerful eyes or something.

She’s a native of France, that’s why her justified ball moves currently in her brain cage.

Ride together with my pet dog? Where? Why???

The number one heart attack myth is dufour bardette rachel hip.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Spamfiles Classics 1

It’s Thanksgiving week, so I’m off doing other stuff. How about some spam?

One of the first pieces of spam I put on here. I still have no idea what it’s supposed to be saying.

Oh wow. I forgot about the era when I kept getting spam with random phrases in the body of the message, such as “Saturday morning charlie hung up her head”. They really knew how to make spam back then.

Protect your family from Sex Offenders! And stop the ringing in your ears and fall asleep naturally! Of course those two things are related!!!

This man’s deeply held religious beliefs won’t let him be a party to stealing my lottery funds, but apparently they also don’t make him feel the urge to do anything besides tell me about it.

Access to this information is privileged! You guys better not tell anyone about this, or Oaks Chambers will get you!

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Language Of Confusion: Guest Hosts

It’s almost that time of year, when we’re inundated with guests. Not me, though. Thankfully. Anyway, etymology.
 
Guest comes from the Old English gaest/giest, which just means guest or host. That’s from the Proto Germanic gastiz, which is from the Proto Indo European root ghos-ti-, stranger, guest, or host, and in spite of looking like ghost, no, they’re not related even a little.
 
But you know what is related? Host, which showed up in the thirteenth century. Except that came to us through the Old French oste/hoste, guest or host, from the classical Latin hospitem, a guest or stranger, from the word hospes, host. That one’s thought to be from the Proto Indo European ghos-pot-, literally “guest master”, which is derived from gos-ti-. So basically, Latin dropped the G and now we have host.
 
And I’m sure you noticed how hospitem looks an awful lot like hospital. Hospital itself showed up in the mid thirteenth century meaning a shelter for the needy, probably because there weren’t any hospitals back then. It’s from the Old French hospital/ospital, a shelter or hostel, and also the origin word for hotel. And yes, that’s where hostel comes from, too, and weird fact of the day, use of hostel died out in the sixteenth century only to be revived in the early nineteenth century. So the Old French hospital is from the Late Latin hospitale, an inn, and that’s taken from the classical Latin hospitalis, which is from hospes, like host was.
 
Next, how about a negative word from the same place. Hostile showed up in the late fifteenth century, coming from the French hostile, and before that the classical Latin hostilis, a hostile or enemy. That’s then from hostis, stranger or enemy, another word from ghos-ti. I guess because strangers were generally considered to be enemies?
 
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
Orbis Latinus

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

From The Spamfiles

It’s spam day! Since I’m not doing regular posts next week, maybe I’ll do some spam posts? Best of the spam I’ve gotten over the years. Yes, that sounds easy like something people would enjoy.

Did she get tossed in a pit of acid? Because I imagine that would melt a lot of fat away.

This one seems very unsure of itself. I suppose having all those question marks helps with liability. Also, the quotes around ‘free’ there. Because we all know it isn’t free.

Okay, about the random English words in this language I don’t know: obviously it’s supposed to attract people (gamblers, I suppose, based on the words “win” and “poker”). But why though? Why random English in some other language? Does that actually work on people? Oh my god. That actually works on people.

Is the unusual activity putting spaces in between each letter of Google? Because I do find that suspicious.

They were so close to sounding like a real human, and then they ruined it with that “Disclaimer: Note:” and claiming to have found my email through “manually” efforts. Also the fact that they say they’re not a spammer is a huge red flag. No idea why they’re mentioning “The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003” either.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Better Off In The Garbage

Some things are better off forgotten.
It’s the reverse of all those comics where I have a funny idea, don’t write it down, and then am cursing myself when I can’t remember it.

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Language Of Confusion: Totally Radical

Not sure what prompted me to look at this word, but it seems fun. Especially when you actually look at all the words related.
 
Radical showed up in the late fourteenth century, though back then it meant either something originating in a root/the ground or body parts or fluids vital to life. Sometime in the mid seventeenth century it started to mean essential or originating, and then in the late eighteenth century it was used to refer to radical reform—as in, change at the roots. Then some time in 1921, a hundred years ago now, people started using it to mean unconventional. Anyway, radical comes from the classical Latin radicalis, from radix, which means root. That’s from the Proto Indo European wrad-, which means branch or root and is the origin for many other surprising words.
 
Eradicate at least makes sense for being related to radical. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin eradicatus, uproot. The verb form of that, eradicare, is a mix of ex-, out, and radix, meaning this word is “root out”.
 
Now we might as well look at root since it is related. Root comes from the Old English rot (it was pronounced with a long o, so it was basically still just root), from the Proto Germanic wrot, which is then from wrad-. Basically, it’s what radical used to mean, but it came to us through Germanic instead of Latin. Wort has a similar origin, coming from the Proto Germanic wurtiz, and then wrad-. I don’t even know why they bothered differentiating the words.
 
Now we’re getting into the fun ones. Licorice—the plant and thus the candy—showed up sometime around the thirteenth century as licoriz. It’s from the Anglo French lycoryc and Old French licorece, from the Late Latin liquiritia, and that one is from the classical Latin glychyrrhiza, from the Greek glykyrrhiza. No, a cat didn’t walk across my keyboard, those are words. The first part, glykus, means sweet (it’s related to glucose) and the rhiza means root and is also from wrad-. Licorice is sweet root. But we dropped the G for some reason.
 
The last one’s really going to seem weird: ramification. Really! It showed up in the late seventeenth century from the French ramification, branching out. Apparently a ramification as in a consequence is considered to be an outgrowth, or literally a branching out. The word is from the Old French verb ramifier, the origin of ramify, and that’s from the Medieval Latin ramificari, to form branches, from the classical Latin ramus, branch. And if you haven’t already figured it out, ramus is from wrad-. Crazy how using a word figuratively can cause it to radically change its meaning.
 
Heh, radically.
 
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
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

From The Spamfiles

Let’s see how people are trying to scam me this week.

Yes, because Sisters are always handing out “over Five million Eight hundred thousand dollars”.

The best solution to paying down your high interest credit cards is to take out a high interest loan. It’s just common sense.

Wait, isn’t that the hitman from the Godfather? Uh-oh. This might be bad.

Okay, I’m instantly suspicious of the name Jennifer only being spelled with one N.

Now this is a delicious piece of spam. Corrupt government officials have kept my fund to themselves for their selfish reason!!! But not to worry, they’ll send it to me via Visa ATM Card and I can get it from any ATM with a MasterCard logo.

Saturday, November 6, 2021

As Usual

Are all moms like this? I’ve only ever had the one so I can’t be sure.
It would be a lot easier to not tell her I had an appointment if I didn’t need to use her car to get there…

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Language Of Confusion: Sponsors

Wow, an actual new word etymology! It’s a miracle!
 
Sponsor showed up in the mid seventeenth century, making it relatively young in word terms. It comes from the Late Latin sponsor, which specifically meant a sponsor in a baptism, and in classical Latin, the word is from spondere, to guarantee. A sponsor is a guarantee, I guess. Anyway, it can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European spondeio-, to libate. I actually had to look that one up and it means to drink alcohol or to make an offering of alcohol. And for some reason that’s how we got sponsor.
 
Response and respond are much older than sponsor, having shown up in the fourteenth century, and while they’re closely related, they actually got to English through slightly different paths. Respond is from the Anglo French respundre, from the Old French respondere, while response is from the Old French respons and classical Latin responsum, reply. Both those words are from the Latin verb respondere, to reply, which is a combination of re-, back, and spondere. To respond is to guarantee back, apparently. Correspond of course is from the same place, though it showed up a bit later than respond (in the sixteenth century). In Medieval Latin, it is correspondere, which means to correspond, and adds the prefix com-, together or with. It kind of makes sense. To correspond is when both are acting at the same time—to respond together.
 
Next is despondent, which showed up in the late seventeenth century from despondence, which I don’t think is used much anymore. Despondence is only a few decades older, coming from the classical Latin despondentem, despondent, from the verb despondere, which meant to give up or resign, or… to pledge marriage. Yeah. There are a ton of jokes that could be made about this one. The de- means away, and with spondere, to guarantee, the word was to guarantee something away, as in marriage, and frigging hell, this is a standup comedy routine.
 
And that leads us to our final word for today: spouse. It showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old French spous, and that’s from the classical Latin sponsus, which means bridegroom and is derived from spondere. This doesn’t really dissuade the whole standup comedy routine thing.
 
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
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

November Goals

I know I say this every month, but how did this happen??? It’s already November! That can’t be right…
 
October Goals
1. Beta reads for WIP 1. Any volunteers?
It’s getting done. Finding beta readers is hard!
 
2. Finish working on my notes for WIP 2. This one’s actually possible.
I actually did this, yay.
 
3. Update my etymology page. There are so many of them, I think it’s time to create a few separate pages up in the header there. It might make formatting them easier, too.
As you can see, there are now three pages with all the words I’ve etymologized. And a god damn mother$%*&@#$ space in between every paragraph that I can’t get rid of no matter what I try.
 
So mostly successful, which is pretty good considering how hard it was to trudge through the month. Now for this month…
 
November Goals
1. More beta reads, obviously. I need a lot of help figuring out how to improve this one.
 
2. Find something to work on to recharge my creativity. I’ve been feeling very blah about working on my WIPs lately.
 
3. Thanksgiving. Ugh. Remember when this holiday used to be fun? Because I don’t.
 
That’s what I want to do this month. What are you up to?