From The Spamfiles

Spam is easy to deal with, at least.

Yeah, because if there’s one thing I just love, it’s unsolicited suggestions.

Have I had this rolling around in my folder for six months or do the spammers just not care what season it is? Honestly, it could be either.
 

Ah, yes, the standard account Netflix uses when contacting their customers.

This shady commenter wants me to give me a download to cheat at poker! I’m sure said download is not full of malware at all!

This woman’s boobs are following me on twitter, apparently.

Thanksgivings Past #3

This really happened! It had been installed like a month earlier!

This occurred sometime during the morning, just as my mom was prepping the turkey to go into the oven.

Thanksgivings Past #2

My favorite year.

I miss it. Let’s bring it back. Maybe not all the death and disease, but all the not having to be around people.

Thanksgivings Past #1

Comics this week since it’s the big holiday.

He was such a good kitty. And he really, really liked turkey.

Happenstance

It’s weird when stuff lines up like this.

I normally don’t have cough syrup because it makes my blood pressure spike, so the fact that I was randomly sent some months ago (I did a comic about it!) is pretty coincidental.

Language Of Confusion: Feeling Ill

It is flu season after all.
 
Ill showed up in the thirteenth century, though back then it meant something that was morally evil. In the mid fourteenth century, it shifted to mean something “marked by evil intentions”, and it wasn’t until the mid fifteenth century that it started to mean unhealthy. As to its origins, it comes from the Old Norse illr, though anything before that is unknown.
 
You might think ail would be related to ill, but it’s not. Ail comes from the Middle English eilen/alien, from the Old English eglan, to afflict, pain, or trouble, so pretty much what it means today. It’s from the Proto Germanic azljaz, which is from the Proto Indo European agh-lo, from the root agh-, to be depressed or afraid. Appropriate, huh?
 
Nausea showed up in the early fifteenth century straight from the classical Latin nausea, which, you know, means nausea. Apparently they took it from the Ionic Greek word nausea, which is from naus, ship, from the Proto Indo European nau-, boat, a word I’m definitely going to have to look at because it has a ton of offshoots. Anyway, because people get sick on boats, we have nausea.
 
Speaking of being nauseated, queasy showed up in the mid fifteenth century, generally referring to food that upset your stomach, then in the mid sixteenth century anything that upset your stomach. Its origin is actually unknown, though there are theories that it’s related to the Old Norse kveisa, a boil (because the phrase iðra kveisa means bowel pains), or it might be related to the Anglo French queisier and Old French coisier, to wound or make uneasy. But, you know, etymology. So maybe not.
 
Ague is a word we don’t hear much of. It showed up in the fourteenth century meaning an acute fever, then a fever that caused chills and shivering. It comes form the Old French ague and Medieval Latin febris acuta, which literally means fever and sharp. Acuta is from the Proto Indo European root ak-, sharp, so when fevers are sharp, you have ague.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

Let’s see all the porn bots who have followed me this week.

Greg again! I think. Maybe the auto insurance is for a mysterious type of car called the GREG?

Apparently this is Norwegian for “Hi, can we talk?” But do you know what word is the same in both Norwegian and English? No.

Uh oh, I’m sending out photos to random people in my sleep again. I really have to stop doing that.

I will be so happy when this racist and sexist trend of emails dies out. Most spam I find amusing. This is just disgusting.

Well, I’ve never seen a more obvious bot that was most likely trying to screw with the election. How are forty eight people following it???

Switcheroo

The package fairy messed up.

I left it outside and sure enough, it got swapped with the correct package. It was delivered directly from the store, not a shipping company, and had no address on it. Maybe if it did, the driver wouldn’t have gotten them mixed up. Though I still don’t get why I got a picture of my package at someone else’s house.

Language Of Confusion: Red-, Part II

Once again, we’re looking at words descended from the Proto Indo European root red-, which means to scrape, scratch, or gnaw. Most of these make sense, at least.
 
First we’re going to look at raze, which is basically the origin point of a lot of the words today. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the defunct words racen and rasen (they didn’t care so much about spelling back then). It’s from the Old French raser and Medieval Latin rasare, which is from the classical Latin radere, which we talked about last week as meaning to shave, and that’s from red-. Though some people actually think radere might not be from red-, even though they look similar and mean pretty much the same thing, and I can’t even say that’s a crazy idea because word origins can be very, very stupid.
 
Razor of course is similar in origin. It showed up in the fourteenth century, meaning it’s older than raze, from the Old French razor/raseor, which is from the abovementioned raser, and so has the same origin beyond that. Weird how raze means to completely wipe things away like demolition, while a razor is generally something you use to remove hair.

Next is abrasion, which is pretty close to corrosion and erosion. It showed up in the mid seventeenth century (with abrasive not until 1805), coming from the Medieval Latin abrasionem, which is from the classical Latin abradere, to scrape away. Radere should be obvious by now, and ab- means away or off. To abrade is to scrape away, and an abrasion is something scraped away!
 
This one is kind of obvious when you think about it: erase. It showed up in the seventeenth century from the classical Latin erasus, erased. That’s from eradere, to eradicate (BTW though it makes sense, eradicate is not related to these words at all), or more literally to scrape off. The prefix here is from ex-, out, and the rest is from radere, so when you’re erasing something, you’re scraping it all out.
 
Finally today, the word that will probably make the least sense. Rascal showed up in the mid fourteenth century as rascaile, meaning someone of the lowest class or the foot soldiers of an army, as well as a tricky or dishonest person. It’s from the Old French rascaille, rabble or mob, and its origin before that is kind of a mystery, but it might be from the Old French rascler, from the Vulgar Latin rasicare, to scrape, which you might remember being the origin for rash. The thought process is that things that are scraped off, “the scrapings” are the lowest level of society, the rabble, the rascals. Don’t dismiss it when far stupider etymologies are true.
 
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

From The Spamfiles

In spite of all the spam blockers out there, it always finds a way to get through.

Because that’s how it works. Although what the hell is “BIF” supposed to mean?
 

Someone with the perfectly real name John Hunter wants to bridge fund with me!!!

Okay, how did I get on this mailing list?

I definitely spoke too soon. I’d much rather be on the fatty liver disease message chain. I’m going to go throw up from the racism now.

Anyone else weirded out by her body? Because I find it to be totally freaky. How does she have fifty six people following her? Or are they all just other porn bots?

What A Tragedy

I am absolutely devastated.

Now I can’t go out and spend hours raking up the drift of pine needles that has buried the driveway. Oh well.

Language Of Confusion: Red-

Words descended from the Proto Indo European root red-, which means to scrape, scratch, or gnaw, and pops up in a surprising number of places.
 
First, rodent. It showed up fairly recently, in 1835, from the Latin rodentia, which was used as the name of the Order of gnawing mammals. It’s from the classical Latin rodentem, gnawing, which is from red-. The word rat itself might be related—I mean, it makes sense, but you know how these go. It’s from the Old English raet, and no one knows exactly where that came from. It might be from the Vulgar Latin rattus (come on, you’d think that would have to be it), or it might be taken right from rodere. Or, you know, not.
 
Erode showed up in the early seventeenth century while erosion showed up earlier, in the mid sixteenth century. Both come from the classical Latin erodere, to erode, which is a mix of the prefix ex-, away, and rodere, to gnaw. To erode is to gnaw away. Rodent and erode, two words I wouldn’t think would be related but am somehow not surprised that they are.
 
Then there’s corrode, which showed up in the late fourteenth century, making it older than the erode words, and for that matter corrosion. Corrode is from the Old French corroder and classical Latin corrodere, to corrode, while corrosion is from the noun form, corrosionem. This time the prefix is com-, though it’s just thought to be intensive here, and with rodere, to corrode is to really gnaw at something.
 
Finally today, we’ll look at rash—as in a skin break out, not impulsivity, which is from a different origin. Well, most likely anyway, as the origin of skin rash isn’t certain. It showed up in the early eighteenth century and might be from the French rache, which means a scratch or sore. That’s from the Vulgar Latin rasicare, to scrape, from the classical Latin rasitare, to shave, and that’s from radere and red- of course. Well, you do scratch at rashes…
 
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
Encyclopaedia Britannica

November Goals

Man, I have to do this again already? And it’s November??? This isn’t right.
 
October Goals
1. Finish!!!!!
Yay, I did this! Success in something! It’s a miracle!
 
2. Seriously actually get to the beta notes this time, even if I don’t know what I’m going to do with this project.
I finally had the time to do this. As I said, all I needed was free time, and shockingly, I was correct about my own assessment of my life. Funny how that works.
 
3. Crud, it’s time to update my etymology page, isn’t it? This is always such an ordeal.
And it was an ordeal this time, too. I just want to adjust the spacing between the words! I want to be able to paste things from Excel again! I hate you, New Blogger! I HATE YOU!!!!!!!!!
 
I remember the days when updating my etymology page was an easy item to check off. I really wish we could go back to the previous version of Blogger, but alas, it is out of reach.
 
It was kind of a meh month to be honest. I feel like I didn’t sleep through the entirety of October. And now it’s November!
 
November Goals
1. Figure out something to work on next.
 
2. Work on making more blogging connections for my web serial. Not that I know how...
 
3. Thanksgiving. At least this one is easy. Well, it’s its own brand of hell, but it’s going to happen regardless of what I do.