From The Spamfiles

This week is for the questions spam makes me ask myself.

I… don’t really know what I’m looking at here. Stealth attraction definitely doesn’t seem like a thing, and in fact seems creepy, and also, why are they sending it to ME?

Where do you find people to invest your money with if not by random emails?

Really, the email address is ninety percent random letters and numbers, and the person is named Helga for crying out loud. Does this actually work on people???

It wouldn’t be a spam post without a cancer stricken person trying to get me to give their money to charity. Have they never heard of lawyers?

Another person wanting to write a guest post for my blog despite me not knowing them. Frankly, I’m suspicious of anyone who calls me a “thought-leader”. What even is that?

Dial

I swear this is how it works.

No, I don’t know who switches the dial. I just know this is how it happens every year.

Language Of Confusion: Extreme Junction, Part III

Lots more words related to the Proto Indo European yeug-, to join. These ones… get a little more abstract.

First today, yoke, a word that actually kept the Y all these J words are supposed to have. It comes from the Old English geoc, yoke, which in spite of having a G, was pronounced something like yoke. It’s from the Proto Germanic yukam, which is from yeug-, so I guess it kept the Y sound because it’s Germanic instead of Latin.
 
Next, a word that gets weirder the more you think about it: jugular. It showed up in the late sixteenth century, referring to the veins in the neck before being specifically used as the name of one. It comes from the Latin jugularis, from the classical Latin iugulum, throat. That’s actually from iugum, yoke (though not related to the English yoke, of course). But it does make sense since the neck is the place where the head joins the body…
 
Another word with “jug” in it, subjugate, showed up in the early fifteenth century—subjugation actually showed up earlier, in the late fourteenth century. In any case, both words can be traced to the classical Latin subiugare, to subjugate, with sub- meaning under and the rest being from iugum. Well, you’re definitely subjugated if someone has your neck in a yoke.
 
But what about conjugate, which has to do with grammar and not necks? It showed up in the early sixteenth century, coming from the classical Latin coniugatus, which means—and I’m not making this up—a married man. The verb it’s from, coniugare, means to mate/marry or more literally, to yoke together. Guess we know what these people thought about marriage. See, the com- means together, and the rest is from iugum, and because verbs are “conjugated” by “joining together” parts of the verb with different roots (for example, the past tense of conjugate is the verb + -ed), it became a grammatical term. Conjugal is actually a much more literal use of the verb, though it actually showed up decades after conjugate.
 
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

From The Spamfiles

It’s the best part of the week! I know you’re excited!

“We’ve never met before. How about a business deal involving lots of money?”

Oh no! Anamul tried to sign into the Facebook account I don’t have!!! Whatever will I do?

First I miss out on that business deal, then my account gets hacked, now my delivery I didn’t order failed! This just isn’t my week.

Wait a minute, someone dying of cancer is emailing me… and they’re a man??? Something about this just doesn’t add up.

I really don’t think a traveling notary service is going to get a lot of customers by spamming comments on a random blog post. A random blog post about spam, I might add.

Jackhammer

They’re replacing some of the water pipes around where I live. Directly around.

It’s a busy road so I get not wanting to do it during high traffic times, but ten thirty on a Sunday night? Come on! The worst part? They were back three days later!!!

Language Of Confusion: Extreme Junction, Part II

This week we’re looking at more words that come from the Proto Indo European  yeug-, to join, which shows up in so many words having to do with a joining, especially if they have a J in them.
 
First, join, the root of this mess, which I probably should have done last week but there were a ton of junction words. It showed up in the fourteenth century, from the Old French joign- and its root joindre. That’s from the classical Latin iungere, to join, which we talked about last week since it’s the origin of juncture, too. And that word is of course from yeug-.
 
Now for all the prefixed forms. Adjoin showed up in the fourteenth century, the same time as join, and it also pretty much meant the same thing before also taking on the meaning to be adjacent to. It comes from the Old French ajoin and its root ajoindre, from the classical Latin adiungere, which means… well, join, but also to add to or to fasten to. The ad- comes from ad, to, so to adjoin is to add to. Its evolution and usage through the years is surprisingly sensible. How shocking.
 
Conjoin showed up in the late fourteenth century, and there’s nothing imaginative about this one. It comes from the Old French conjoindre, from the classical Latin coniungere, to connect or join together, with the prefix con- means together. Now this is just banal.
 
Enjoin at least has a definition that’s out there, since it means to direct something with authority. It’s the oldest word here, having shown up in the thirteenth century from the Old French enjoindre and classical Latin iniungere, which means literally to join or fasten but figuratively to impose. The prefix is just from en, which means in, so “to join together in” somehow means to impose. Now this is more like I expect from etymology.
 
Finally today we’ll look at rejoinder, which is different from rejoin, which is just re- + join. Rejoinder, like enjoin, is mostly used in legal terms, and it actually showed up in the mid fifteenth century in law usage. It’s from the Old French rejoindre, which meant to answer in legal terms and is their word joindre with the prefix re- meaning again. As to why joindre somehow means to say but only in legal terms, that mystery can only be revealed by French.
 
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

From The Spamfiles

Got to love spam. Well, electronic spam. I think the canned stuff is nasty.

Yes, replying to them will definitely make the messages stop, because that’s how it works. I know I’ve made this joke before, but the shear audacity gets to me.

1. Fancy lettering. 2. RE: in the subject line when I didn’t send the message. 3. Completely inappropriate emoji. 4. Congratulations! 5. “Something extraordinary is about to happen!” And that’s it, Spam Bingo!

From what I’ve heard about HSBC, it would actually be more scammy if it was legit.

It kind of got cut off at the end but she’s writing to me with the help of a nurse. Peeps, I believe we have a cancer widow here.

The Vietnamese is actually way less suspicious than the “This is very interesting news” on one of my blog posts.

Skylight

Spying!

He goes up on the roof. Is he now expecting to be let in via the skylight???

Language Of Confusion: Extreme Junction, Part I

This was inspired by Pradeep, who mentioned the word junction in one of his posts and got me going down a rabbit hole. And it’s another long multi-part series, because I never learn.
 
Junction showed up in 1711, a specific year, that’s how recent it was. Of course, back then it meant “act of joining”, and it wasn’t until 1836 that it came to mean two things coming together—in fact, it was first used that way in American English to refer to railroad tracks, and it spread from there. The word comes from the classical Latin iunctionem, connection or joining, from the verb iungere, to join. The reason for the iu at the beginning is because it refers to the Y sound, which used to be symbolized by the letter J before Italian used it to mean the soft J sound. Then the pronunciation of the word changed to fit the spelling, because that makes total sense.
 
Iungere there comes from the Proto Indo European root yeug-, to join, which is the origin for so many words that have something to do with joining. Injunction is pretty obvious, though interestingly it showed up in the early fifteenth century, so before junction. It comes from the Late Latin iniunctionem, a command, from the classical Latin iniungere, to impose. The in- means on- and comes from the Proto Indo European root en, and with iungere, to join, making injunction “to join on” or more figuratively to join together. Somehow that makes less sense than I expected, and I promise, my expectations were not high.
 
Also obviously related is juncture, which showed up in the late fourteenth century and first meant a place where two things are joined, before also meaning the act of joining together and then a point in time (as in, “at this juncture”, which is really confusing if you think about it). It comes from the classical Latin iunctura, combination or joining, which is of course from iungere. Makes more sense than the last ones.
 
Next, joint, both the part of a body and the adjective version. It showed up in the fourteenth century as the place where two bones meet, from the Old French joint, which is from the classical Latin iunctus, connected. The adjuctive showed up a bit later, in the early fifteenth century meaning united or sharing (and possibly where the slang term for pot came from). It comes from the Old French jointiz, which is from joint, so no huge leaps here. Disjointed showed up in the late sixteenth century, first metaphorically as a synonym for incoherent and then literally separating joints. It comes from the Old French desjoint, from the classical Latin disiungere, to disengage, a mix of dis-, lack of or not, and iungere. Disjointed is NOT joined together. How sensible.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

May Goals

Ugh, April was just wildly unsuccessful. Just another one of those months I’ve been having for the last fifteen years or so.
 
Ugh.
 
April Goals
1. Keep searching for beta readers for my book. It’s almost like people have lives outside of me or something.
Still working on this. Like I said, wildly unsuccessful.
 
2. Work on writing the new WIP I’ve decided I have to write right now this very moment.
I did this. I’m sure it’s not any good, but I got around 40K.
 
3. Update my etymology page, even though after a year I still can’t get the damn formatting right. Seriously, I HATE new Blogger.
Did you see they’ve screwed with commenting? Now I’ve got that to deal with, and heaven forbid they just fix post formatting! I WANT TO ADJUST PARAGRAPH SPACING DAMMIT! Without that stupid "Normal-Paragraph-Heading-Subheading" crap. And Also without it crashing on me!!! I used to be able to just paste my etymology list in from Excel and it was perfect, but nope, they had to wreck that. I have to copy it in from a Word file and because it’s a Word file, it screws up the formatting, but what else am I supposed to do when I have well over a thousand words that I’m not typing in and spacing one by one???
 
Kind of devolved into a rant on that last one. I think I have some stuff to work out. Which I wouldn’t if I could just use Old Blogger!
 
Okay, enough of that before I unleash another rant…
 
May Goals
1. More beta reads. Still need more people.
 
2. Finish new WIP. This one will hopefully be easy.
 
3. Work on an new draft of my query letter. And watch it become obsolete almost immediately. 
 
So that’s what I want to do for May. Though I’m tempering my expectations.

Fandango

It was quite an ordeal, really. Though the hardest part was still the damn pull chain.

It also doesn’t make a clicking noise when it’s running, so that’s a win.

Language Of Confusion: Flats, VI

We’re still doing this! It’s week six! The Proto Indo European plat-, spread, and its root pele-, flat or to spread, are the spawn point for just so many words. Most of them you can kind of see, but some of them…
 
Floor comes from them, which makes sense since fields are generally. It descended from the Old English flor, which means… floor. It’s not rocket science here. It’s from the Proto Germanic floruz, from the Proto Indo European plaros, flat surface. That’s from pele-. and there’s no real explanation for why the P became an F, but that’s something that happens a lot anyway.
 
For another example of P to F: field. It comes from the Old English feld, which is just a field or farmland, and before that the Proto Germanic felthan. That’s from the Proto Indo European pele-tu, from pele-, so I guess the lesson here is that for some reason Germanic languages change Ps to Fs. Related to field is the word veldt. I mean, it makes sense since a veldt is basically a field, but in terms of spelling none of the letters they have in common are even in the same positions. Veldt showed up in 1785 and is Afrikaans, which of course is from the Dutch veld, which means field. I guess the Dutch switch Ps to Vs instead of Fs.
 
You want to know what else is related? Poland. Yes, the country. It’s actually a mix of Pole (as in the people) and Land. Pole showed up in the mid seventeenth century, actually from the Polish polanie which means clearing or field dweller. That’s from pele-, meaning that the Polish people took their name for themselves from living in flat fields. And no, no other version of pole is related, nor is polish. But polka, the music, is related. Well, probably. It showed up in 1844 and is thought to be from Polack, which is of course from Pole. And that’s polka where we get polka-dot, because people named the dots after the dance in around 1849.

And I can’t believe it, but we’re done!

Crap, now I have to think up something for next week.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
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

From The Spamfiles

Spam is so uncomplicated. You know it’s all a bunch of crap going in.

 

I have no idea what this is supposed to be for since it just seems to be a bunch of letters and numbers—even in the email address. And of course the words that are actually words sound like someone ran it through Google Translate a few times before sending it.

Oh no. My adress was not specified correctly. How will I get my Walmart Service © now???

…Who the frig is “Mary”?????

Well, this is a new one. Someone from Gambia (but living in Senegal) wants to buy farmland in my country. She’s not even a widow with cancer! How bizarre.

Look at my newest follower, who just joined Twitter this month and is definitely a real person. Seriously, what’s with the mushroom emoji?

Pull Chain

This was the thing that broke me.

Seriously, putting up the fan was fine, but the frigging pull chain is totally impossible.

Language Of Confusion: Flats, Part V

This is what? The fifth one? And there’s still one more left? I really didn’t expect flat to be so prevalent. Of course, it’s really its root, the Proto Indo European plat-, to spread, and its root pele-, flat or to spread, that are everywhere. Strap in, it’s going to get weird.
 
First today, something that kind of makes sense. Palm showed up in the fourteenth century from the Old French paume/palme, from the classical Latin palma, where it means the palm of your hand or, you know, a palm tree. Palma comes from pele-, flat, which I can see because the palm of your hand is flat. And the tree of course is named for the palm of a hand, because the way the leaves stick out kind of looks like fingers sticking out from a palm.
 
Next, plaza, which kind of relates to last week when we looked at place. It didn’t show up in English until the nineteenth century, and it’s Spanish in origin, as the word plaza means square in Spanish, like a town square. The Spanish plaza comes from the Vulgar Latin plattia, from the classical Latin platea, street, and that’s from plat-. Streets were flat and spread out, and now we have plaza. And a bunch of other things.
 
Now we can finally get into the weird ones! Plasma—like the state of matter, or part of blood—showed up in 1712, though back then it just meant form or shape. It started to mean the liquid part of blood in 1845, and then came into use in physics in 1928, and now those are pretty much the only ways we use the word. Plasma comes from the Late Latin plasma, from the Greek plasma, which actually means creature or figure of all things. It’s from the verb plassein, to mold or build, which was originally “to spread thin”, and it’s descended from pele-. So it went from spreading out, to molding, to a figure, to a shape, to blood/ionized gas. This is definitely a thinker.
 
And to keep the weird going: plaster. It showed up in the fourteenth century as plastering walls or using a medicinal plaster. It comes from the Old English plaster, which was something medicinal you put on your body (as opposed to in it), coming from the Latin plastrum, plaster, and if things weren’t weird enough for you, plastrum is actually shortened from emplastrum, which also just means plaster. It’s from the Greek emplastron, plaster, a mix of en-, on, and plastos, molded, and that’s from plassein, which we already know. So plaster is plaster because it’s molded on.
 
Finally, I hope you love this, because we’re looking at plastic. Plastic! Really! It showed up in the mid seventeenth century meaning something capable of molding something else, and back then it was only an adjective—the noun didn’t show up until 1905. It’s from the classical Latin plasticus, plastic, from the Greek plastikos, which means something to mold. And it’s from plastos and plassein, so because moldable things can be flattened out, we have plaster, plasma, and plastic.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

I know you’re excited!

 

Since we’re using emojis, the one I’d use for this would be 🙄.
 

First of all I’m apparently emailing this to myself. Second of all… what the hell is going on with the letters? Why is every O and A in red and P in blue??? What is special about those letters?????
 

Well, I’m in between the ages of 35-60, but I’m not a real gentleman, so I guess I won’t be holding the door for HOTINFINIT. Tough luck.

Definitely feeling uneasy about the quotes being used here. First ‘kills’, which just makes me think it’s going to kill the user, then “speechless”, which makes me think it’s going to kill the wives, too.

…Stay away from me and my pants, Unknown Commenter.

The Most Terrifying Time Of The Year

This exchange between me and my mom actually happened a few months ago, but I figured this would be the appropriate time for it.

 
If you don’t know what cryptocurrency is, it’s probably safe to assume you don’t have it.

Language Of Confusion: Flats, Part IV

And this series has a ways to go yet. Look, there are a ton of words that come from the Proto Indo European plat-, spread and its root pele-, flat or to spread.
 
Not too long ago, I went over the word plant, which is another descendent of plat-/pele-, either because of leveling/flattening the earth to plant, or spreading plants across, or something else like that. A plant is a form of vegetation, so why are literally none of the words that end in plant related to that? Let’s find out. Well, maybe. Probably not.
 
Implant showed up in the mid sixteenth century, meaning to plant in—but not literally. It was “to plant in” ideas or emotions, and then in 1886, it took on a more literal meaning: to plant in teeth. It comes from the French implanter, to insert, a mix in- (from the Proto Indo European en, meaning in) and planter, to plant, which is of course where we get plant from. In other words, because implant wasn’t literal implanting (at first), it has nothing to do with plants.
 
Transplant is even older, having shown up in the mid fifteenth century from the Late Latin transplantare, to plant in a different place. It’s a mix of the classical Latin trans, across or beyond, and plantare, to plant. This one at least first meant transplanting actual plants, it’s just that in the sixteenth century it started to refer to people (i.e. transplanting from one area to another), and then in the eighteenth century it started to be used in medicine related to tissue, and no, I don’t want to think about what they were transplanting in eighteenth century medicine.
 
Supplant showed up in the early fourteenth century, meaning it’s older than anything except maybe plant. It comes from the Old French supplanter/sosplanter, to drive out or usurp, from the classical Latin supplantare, just to supplant. The sup- part comes from sub, under, and the plant part actually refers to the sole of the foot here, one of the many definitions of plant. So to supplant is to… get something up from under the sole of the foot? And that morphed into usurping, which morphed into replacing something? Can anyone wrap their brain around this one?
 
Okay, the last one we’re going to look at today will make more sense when I explain things. What is it? Clan. Really. It actually comes from Scotland in around the fifteenth century, coming from the Gaelic clann, family. The Scots actually took the word from the Latin planta, a plant or in this case, an offshoot. Why the C? Well, as it turns out, some branches of Gaelic substitute the K sound for the P sound. And that’s why clan is not plan.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Ah, finally. Spam is so much easier to deal with than stupid Blogger’s stupid interface that doesn’t work. And life in general.

Um, they’re calling me “Emily J Weston”. That’s definitely a new one. I might have a new pen name.

“If you received this message in your SPAM/BULK folder, it is because for your email and not because we are trying to scam you out of money. Anyway, send us several thousand dollars!”

I really enjoy how it says “Walmart?” in the message, like even it isn’t sure it’s pretending to be Walmart.

The Mo-Lottery! Way more legitimate than any other lottery!

So pornbots are sending solicitations through blog comments now? That just seems even more ineffective than usual.

Late

Part two of the bizarrely ongoing saga of issues I’ve had with ordering things online lately. Or not so lately.

On the packaging was the word “misshipped”. Which… isn’t really a word, but not the issue here.

Language Of Confusion: Flats, Part III

The next part of what is sure to be a ridiculously long series because just SO MANY words come from the Proto Indo European plat-, spread, and its root pele-, flat or to spread. This week: all sorts of plains. And planes.
 
First, plain showed up in the fourteenth century, coming from the Old French plain, and before that the classical Latin planus, flat, which is from pele-. In English, plain originally only meant flat, but it also started to mean “free from obstruction”, like flatland is, and it came to mean simple or unembellished. And that’s why we have plain. Also explain, which showed up in the fifteenth century. It’s from the classical Latin explanare, which means to comment on or, you know, explain, and is planus with ex-, out. To explain is to flatten out. Um, metaphorically, I have to assume. And now I’m sure you’re expecting me to go over complain. Nope. It’s not related to plain or explain. Seriously.

 
As for the other plane, it showed up in the seventeenth century, when it was decided they needed to differentiate the geometric sense of plane (which then also got used as part of airplane). It’s from the classical Latin planum, plane, which is from planus. Plan showed up in the late seventeenth century, first meaning a drawing, then a scheme, as it’s more commonly used today. It’s from the French plan, plan obviously, and that’s from planum. Because drawings were done on flat surfaces. Well, it makes more sense than explain does.
 
You know what looks like plane? Planet. You know what’s in all likelihood not related to plane? Also planet. So no, we won’t be looking at it. Instead, we’re looking at place. It’s the oldest word here, having shown up in the thirteenth century, coming from the Old French place and Medieval Latin placea. That’s from the classical Latin platea, which meant street or courtyard or an open space. It’s from the Greek plateia, a square or plaza, which is from platys, wide or broad. A word we covered extensively last 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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin

April Goals

Ugh, this again. Let’s see what I didn’t do last month.
 
March Goals
1. Get some feedback on my new WIP. It’s a contemporary mystery about the murder of a girl. It’s character driven and very different from what I usually write, so if anyone anywhere would like to look at it and give me some guidance, I’d really appreciate it.
Hey, I did this! Of course, this was less dependent on me than on who I could sucker into ask to help me with this.
 
2. Try to edit the WIP I keep avoiding. I might ignore it, but I can’t let myself forget it.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
 
3. Keep working on my latest new project. This one should be easy, I hope.
I did finish the short story I was working on. And immediately decided to work on a new book because of course I did.
 
Meh. I guess I did most of what I wanted. It just doesn’t feel that way. And now…
 
April Goals
1. Keep searching for beta readers for my book. It’s almost like people have lives outside of me or something.
 
2. Work on writing the new WIP I’ve decided I have to write right now this very moment.
 
3. Update my etymology page, even though after a year I still can’t get the damn formatting right. Seriously, I HATE new Blogger.
 
What are you up to this month? Anyone able to beta read? Do you know how to get rid of the damn double space between lists of words? And DO NOT say hold down shift when you hit enter, that doesn’t work when you have thousands of words.

Incorrect

I don’t know how you could mix those two things up.

It hasn’t done a thing for my hair.

Language Of Confusion: Flats, Part II

Got plenty more of these to go over, each weirder than the last. As you’re all aware, flat comes from the Proto Indo European plat-, to spread, which is from the root pele-, flat or to spread. So lets get to look at all the words that are somehow related to it. This week: words that still sound like flat but with a P instead of an F.
 
First, plate. It showed up in the mid thirteenth century, but back then it meant a flat sheet of gold or silver, before starting to mean armor made from sheets of metal, and then dinnerware in the fifteenth century. So yes, plate armor predates plates you eat off of. It comes from the Old French plate, a thin piece of metal, from the Medieval Latin plata (same meaning). That’s thought to be from the Vulgar Latin plattus, from the Greek platys, flat or broad, and of course that’s from plat-/pele-.
 
And of course there are a ton of other words with plat- in them. Platter showed up in the late thirteenth century with the same meaning we have for it—meaning platter predates plate as something for food. It comes from the Anglo French plater, from the Old French plate, and we all know where that comes from. Plateau, plate with an -au on the end, showed up in 1796, from the French plateau, which means plateau or more literally “table land”. It’s from the Old French platel, a flat piece of metal, from plat, flat surface, and, well, it all traces back to platys.
 
Next, words that begin with plat-. Platform showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the French plateforme, which means plat form or literally flat form. Platitude didn’t show up until 1812, where it meant “insipidity of thought”, meaning a platitude is something unoriginal. It’s from the French platitude, flatness, from plat, so a platitude is something that is metaphorically flat! Then there’s platinum the metal, whish also showed up in 1812. Its name is of Latin origin, but it was actually Spanish who shaped the word. See, in Spanish, the word for silver is actually plata, because it was shortened from the phrase plata d’argento, plate of silver, and plata just became silver. The metal platinum was considered by the Spanish to be an inferior silver, so it was called platino, and when the metal was officially named, it was because of that.
 
Finally today, platypus. It has plat in there, so it shouldn’t be that surprising. Platypus is another recent word, having shown up in 1799. It’s actually a Latin word from the Greek platypous, a mix of platys (flat) and pous (foot), so a platypus is a flat foot. Which is far from the most distinguishing thing about 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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

Ah, I love it when there’s an extra week before I have to do any self-reflection. Not like in stupid February.

Yes, people are always sending twelve million dollars through email. It’s a perfectly normal occurrence.

See? Another payment. By someone who calls me sir/madam and apparently has the last name “Adlong”. From the Virginia Adlongs.

Okay, I’m not sure what the hell this is supposed to say. I assume it’s some other language—though I really can’t be sure—and it says it’s from London, a place pretty famous for speaking, you know, English.

STOREBRAND, an absolutely trustworthy investment project!

 

Oh wow. You’d think a general would know how to spell “command”, but here we are. I honestly didn’t believe this was a real person, but if you google the name, yep, there’s an actual retired general named Carter Ham. General Ham. I could never come up with a joke better than that.