Language of Confusion: The Reimagining!

Seriously, every movie franchise does this. And I hate it every time. If someone says so-and-so’s “bold new vision!” I want to puke.

Um, but I suppose that isn’t relevant. Anyway, there are tons more dual words to look at, but why don’t we try for something different? Besides words that have dual meanings, there are words that sound similar (insure and ensure) or words that should not mean the same thing but do (flammable and inflammable…what the hell is up with that?). Hell, there’s even more strangeness we can look at. We aren’t limited by one thing! So…shall we?

I’m looking at insure and it’s many ‘sure’ cousins: ensure, assure, insurance, et al. The thing these words all have in common is the sure, so that’s the best place to start.

It shouldn’t surprise you that the word sure (meaning confident, positive or unfailing, unerring) is related to secure, and are even the same word in Old French, sur. Both come from the Latin securus, itself a combination of two words: se and cura (free from). Think about it: free from worry is secure, and if you know it, you are sure. : )

Sure started out as a synonym for secure, but drifted into becoming a word for mentally confident in something. This is the meaning that branched into words like assure (again, Old French, asseurer—to calm, protect, render sure). The Romance languages, Old French included, like to use the a- prefix to mean to or at. So when one assures another, she is directing sure-ness towards them!

Soon after sure was introduced, ensure came into play as well. The en- prefix usually means inside or into. One who is ensured is one who is brought into sureness. When you ensure someone, you tell them it’s okay, no they don’t look fat, it happens to every guy.

About a century after sure and ensure came into use, (which was Middle Ages, around 14^th century), insure did as well. The prefix in- is in this case, identical in meaning to en-, where it means brought inside or into. Except in this case it doesn’t refer to being brought to a state of mind (sureness) but a financial sense. This difference in essences is likely why both ensure and insure are still around and not integrated into one another (because of the prevalence, the in version would probably be victorious in usage). Anyway, when someone is brought in to surance, they are insured. The 17^th century clearly defined insure as financial security, how we still use it today.

Again, thanks goes to the online etymology dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php), and to Dictionary.com, (http://dictionary.reference.com/), the best online dictionary I’ve come across.

As always, I’m open to suggestions for words to look into. And now, back to NaNoWriMo.

Adaptation Island

I got the title for this one from an eighth grade project where we had to make up a plant/animal and see if it would survive in the various conditions our teacher made up, like evolution. I made a meat eating tree.

Have you ever noticed that I invariably start these with some sort of anecdote? Hm.

Anyway! I’m here today to talk about movie adaptations. I know. It’s every writer’s dream. I’ve heard a lot of people actually picture who will play their characters in movies. I don’t, mostly because I always picture the characters in my head and to me, they’re separate people. Maybe I’ve seen traits somewhere and combined them. But I don’t know who could or would play them in movies.

I remember Stephen King once said how if you ever watch a movie based off a book, whenever you read the book you tend to picture the actor who plays the character. Not me. It does happen sometimes just because of excellent casting, but most of the time, the picture stays who I have in my head.

What about you? Do you have a dream cast for your book or do you like who is in your head?

When Getting Angry IS Appropriate

Yesterday I wrote about two experiences I had with anger, but I'd like to emphasize how needless the anger was. One was due to wounded pride, the other to frustration (I assume). Both acted inappropriately.

People, if you want something to get angry about, get angry about my friend Gavi's experience being run through bureaucracy. Her daughter needs help but the only way for her to get it is, because her family is middle class, being legally abandoned and deemed a ward of the state. As a good mother, Gavi is doing whatever it takes to stay with her daughter and get her the help she needs. The help the state is refusing to give her.

With all the talk about wasteful government spending, we have meetings where a "problem" is discussed between different agencies but no one steps up to offer a solution. Of course no one does. They don't want to be blamed if it fails or costs too much money.

Meanwhile, there is a family suffering.

Of course, with the elections over, politicians are a lot less motivated to help out, especially with mental illness. Do you know how many state representatives running for office this year had plans for mental health care? One.

It's time to stop waiting for the government to do something. It's time we start telling them to do it. In a few months when the new session starts, you can bet I'm going to start writing to my representatives. And I'll post information here if anyone else wants to do the same.

I'm open to suggestions for other ways to get the word out. As for my friends in other countries, what do you think about health care? A right? A privilege? I'd love your opinions and insights.

Okay, my rant on health care is over. For now. : p

An Angry Place

There is too much anger in the world. Just reading the newspaper depresses me because of how mean people are to those with different opinions. I always thought people could not like someone without it descending into frothing maniacs that seem to think insults equal proof.

When I was in college, I commuted from my parents’ home. It usually wasn’t that bad. But there are two incidents that stand out in my mind as being absolutely frightening. Neither one should have happened, but did because…actually, I don’t know why. I just can’t see why people would be that angry.

The first happened during the morning rush hour. I was coming down an exit, two lanes merging as they joined with the three congested lanes of the highway. Normally, traffic zippers in. A car from the right lane, a car from the left, back to the right, back to the left. But there are always people who want to cut off the other lane to get in 0.5 seconds sooner.

I was in the left lane merging into the highway when a utility truck pulled up next to me, trying to force me back so he could get ahead. But people on the highway were trying to get over in time for the next exit and I was boxed in. I could have dropped back, in fact I probably should have, but he was trying to cut me off and I didn’t like it. I was almost on the highway and this guy was trying to push me out of the way just to get ahead. When I saw that he was still pushing in, I honked my horn, mistake number two. Unfortunately, by this time I was completely surrounded. I kept honking my horn, worried he just didn’t see me as people from the left lane came in from the front and the back. Finally, he dropped back, honking his horn back at me.

I felt vindicated. That was stupid. I was wrong. I admit I should have just let him cut me off to keep the peace, and that I didn’t because of some stupid pride. But that doesn’t give him the right to tailgate me, honking his horn and flashing his lights. I pull into the left lane, he follows. I pull back into the right, so does he, still tailgating. Finally, traffic separated us and he waved when he pulled ahead. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I moved into the left most lane in preparation for an exit. It was moving faster than the other lanes and I passed him again. I wasn’t even thinking about it when he pulled in behind me, cutting someone else off, and started tailgating again. I pulled into the center lane just to get away from him. As he went by, I noticed the car he cut off following him.

Whatever wrong I did him, was this an appropriate response? Why do people feel so angry when they drive that they have to come after people for an unnoticed mistake? Which brings me to my next story.

It happened during the morning commute again, but this time while I was near the college. The road to the school is a double yellow and a van had stopped to make a left hand turn. I moved over to the right to try and get around, but the shoulder is small and he didn’t leave much room. I ended up waiting rather than chance the uneven terrain on either side of the road (this college was kind of far out for someone used to the dense eastern coast of America:).

But the person behind me disagreed. He honked, flashed his lights, flipped me off a lot. I raise my arms in a “What do you expect me to do?” gesture. I’m not risking my tires, all right? I thought he got it.

He did not.

The traffic was just enough so we had to wait a little for the van to make his turn. Like a minute. For me, this wasn’t a problem. He finally moved and the path was cleared. I noticed the car behind following me, but figured it was just another student (well, I was right). I drove into the parking lot, parked. Again, he was near me, but so were a lot of other arrivals.

I had a half an hour before class started, so I took my time organizing my books. Then I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed him glaring at me, mouthing obvious swears. I got out. “What is your problem?”

He never actually said, only called me derogatory names. I wrote down his license plate and drove to the other end of the parking lot, where a campus parking security was parked. I told her what happened and admitted I was afraid of leaving my car because this guy was acting insane. The security guard called campus police. I made a report because this was too damned inappropriate, too damned wrong.

The worst thing I did was inadvertently block him and make him wait an extra minute. If he was late for class, sorry, but that isn’t my fault. I’ve been stuck in traffic and late, too, and yes, it’s frustrating to get stuck behind a slow poke. But I don’t chase people and threaten them no matter how much they annoyed me.

The world is a scary place. The sad thing is: it doesn’t have to be.  

An Historical Event

Because I'm such an incredible nerd, I just got to thinking about our favorite article twins, a and an. The general rule is to use an in front of a vowel, a in front of a consonant. So it would be a girl, a boy, a hour, an apple, an envelope, an utility.

But those aren’t all right, are they? In fact, spell check is telling me to correct “a hour.” As it should!

To be more specific, a is supposed to be used in front of a consonant sound, while an is used in front of a vowel sound. Though a vowel, u started words often sound like consonants, like the word utopia (you-tope-ee-ah). An utopia doesn’t sound right. But an umlaut (uhm-lout) does!

And that h. Always a trouble maker. Despite what Jon Stewart says, it’s a historical event, not an historical event. The only reason hour comes with an an (I can’t believe I just wrote that…) is that it sounds like “an our.” Another example is the adopted French word hors d’oeuvre, or heir. Always an an, never an a.

Remember: it’s the sound, not the start. : )

Language of Confusion 4: The Sequel Everyone Said Wouldn’t Happen but for Some Reason Did and It’s about as Bad as You Expect

Yay! Word nerdery! Today’s word is the word that started me on this whole mess: tear :’ o. Because the pronunciations are different, I think it’s probably like entrance, where the identical spellings are a coincidence. Let’s see if I’m right!

The noun version is what comes out when you’re sad. Tear descended from the similar Old English teahor, which is the same as its Proto-Germanic ancestor. The other Proto-Germanic descendants (Old High German, Gothic, Old Norse, among others) have similar words, although German and High German actually begin with z’s (you got to love German; the only thing better is when they use k’s for c’s).

Anyway, Proto-Germanic, like most languages on the other side of the world, descent from the all-encompassing Proto-Indo-European. The word? Dakru or draku. Yes, that’s where tear comes from. If you look at Latin and its cousins, it gets even more different: lacrima and its Old Latin predecessor dacrima (somewhat similar to the Proto-Indo-European).

Okay, so here’s the tear rundown as close to its chronological evolution as I can get: Dakru/draku (Proto-Indo-European), dakryma (Greek), dacrima (Old Latin), deigr (Welsh), takh/tagr (Proto Germanic), der (Irish), tar (Old Norse/Old Frisian), tagr (Gothic), zahar (Old High German), Zähre (German), teahor (Old English), tear (English).

I guess that sort of makes sense.

Next: tear, as in to rip. This has a similar evolutionary background, but this starts from a different place. First, it comes from another Old English word, but this ancestor is different: teran. Its Proto-Germanic word is teran and its Proto-Indo-European word is der. Now that is similar.

Most of der’s descendants have stayed the close to it: zehren (German), zeran (Old High German), derein (Greek), tare (Old English) and many others of similar pronunciations.

So in conclusion, these words are spelled the same but have very divergent origins. One word evolved a lot, the other, not so much, into something we now spell the same.

Again, I’d like to thank The Online Etymology Dictionary, as well as the Scientific American article Use It or Lose It: Why Languages Change Over Time, and Google Translate for translating tear into many other languages.

Cookies!

I do love sweets. So this morning, when Karen's delicious wonders came in the mail--eeeeeeeeeee!

Really, they're quite good. I asked for the chocolate chip variety (what can I say, I'm a purist : ) and would highly recommend them if you're in the mood for good cookies. They crumble perfectly and taste wonderful. I think they're more flavorful than anything I've had before. And the chocolate chips! They are rich without going overboard, perfect little nougats of darkness.

See how poetic I get about cookies? Yeah. Ridiculous. I'll try for some word nerdery tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how far I get on my NaNoWriMo project. And to everyone participating: keep on writing!