Language of Confusion: More Colorful

We had most of the standard colors, now it’s time for the rest.

Pink

First showed up in the 1570s when it was a common name for a plant. It didn’t emerge as a color until the seventeenth century. For the record, pinkie finger has nothing to do with the color. It’s actually from a Dutch word, pinkje, which means little finger. There’s also the pink that’s part of pinking shears, which isn’t related to pink or pinkie either.

Violet

This should surprise no one, but before it was a color, it was just the plant. It showed up in the early fourteenth century, and much like how orange the color derived from orange the fruit, violet comes from the flower.

Indigo

Showed up in the mid-sixteenth century and shockingly enough, it comes from the Spanish inico, which itself comes from Dutch (indigo) by way of Portuguese (endego). Seriously, that’s how the word came to English. But of course Latin is involved, because indigo and endego come from the classical Latin indicum, taken from the Greek indikon. It literally means blue dye from India. The idea for the color comes from that dye.

Teal

This one is absolutely awesome. Teal was originally only a word for a species of small duck. Using it a color didn’t happen until 1923, where it was named for the blue-green colors on the bird’s head and wings.

Tan

Comes from the Old English tannian, a word for tanning hide into leather, which was done using tannin. Tannian comes from the Medieval Latin tannare, a word for the color tan which is derived from tannum, crushed oak bark.

Brown

First showed up as an adjective coming from the Old English brun, dusky, from the Proto Germanic brunaz and further back, the Proto Indo European bher, shining or brown. Yes, brown really did once mean shining. You know how burnish means to polish something? That has the same origin as brown.

TL;DR: most color names come from things that have the colors.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

Ducks Unlimited because of course that’s a thing.

Google Translate

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Orbis Latinus

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

October Goals

Well, October 1 was the first Tuesday of the month, which means it’s time to post my goals. Which is good, because I didn’t feel like coming up with a post anyway : P. And first, let’s see how I did for September…

September Goals

1. Work on being more social online. It’s hard for me, but I want to be more active on the sites I’ve joined and get myself more out there. Ugh, I’m not looking forward to this.

Not bad? Not exactly a win, but not a loss, either. I’m still on my Tumblr, Twitter, and obviously, my blog, so yay?

2. Add 30K to my new project. I better do it, too!

Okay, this one is more no than yes. I think if you add it up, it was 30K, but it was split between this one and my other one, which was goal number three.

3. Actually add something to the horror side project this time. I also have a few more horror ideas I want to expand (they’re just fragments right now; I’d like some actual thoughts on what to do with them).

Like I said, I worked on my horror side project, and I did pretty well on it, too. This is a total win, although I probably should have focused more on my paranormal apocalyptic.

Not bad, considering it was also a busy month outside of writing. Now for October…

October Goals

1. Finish Horror Project A, also known as Enduring Eternity. Maybe I’ll share it with you guys.

2. Get 30K words down, preferably more in the paranormal apocalyptic than my other horror project.

3. Keep updating my etymology page. Remember all the trouble I had with that? Oh, man, this is not going to be fun.

So that’s it. What are your plans for this month?

Apples

I read an article saying (okay, if you want to get technical reading) that an apple a day may not keep the doctor away, but it certainly lowers cholesterol. And helps fight heart disease. And can help you lose weight. Now if only I had some idea of where to find some apples…

Oh, look. There’s a bowl of apples from the tree in the backyard.

And a bigger bowl.

And a basket.

Nope. No idea.

Language of Confusion: Gooder

Good, one of the most basic descriptions, is a weird word. Its comparatives (the degrees of the word, like greater to great), are completely different words. There’s no gooder. There is only better, and above that, best.

Good comes from the Old English god, which had a long o sound so it would be pronounced like goad, and despite the similarities, it actually isn’t related to the word god. Well, at least not in terms of etymology. Anyway, the Old English god meant varied things like virtuous, valid, and desirable, so it was fairly similar to how we use it now. It can be traced to the Proto Germanic gothaz, which originally meant something like belonging together, and the Proto Indo European ghedh, suitable or to unite.

Now better has a verb form as well as an adjective one (to better oneself or something). The adjective comes from the Old English bettra/betera, while the verb comes from the Old English beterian, to improve. For the adjective, Proto Germanic gives us batizo and Proto Indo European has bhad, while for the noun, the first gives us batizojan and the latter gives batiz. Best’s history is closely related. It comes from the Old English beste (same meaning), which is a change on another Old English word, betst (if you try to pronounce that, you can see why the changed the word). Originally, beste/betst was the highest degree of the Old English bot, reparation. The words go further back, to the Proto Germanic bat and its higher forms batizon (better) and batistaz (best). And somewhere along the line, it switched from reparation to good, possibly because good never really had higher comparisons.

TL;DR: Better and best were adopted by good.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

The Word Detective

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

The Z is for Zombie

Well, I finally got around to watching World War Z last weekend, so spoilers ahoy if you haven’t seen it yet but still want to. It has already been reviewed by more articulate people than I (who also saw the movie when it actually came out, thus making the reviews actually useful), so I’m not going to go into much depth about it. Suffice to say it was a very standard action film with characters that weren’t realized enough to be compelling and despite being a zombie movie, wasn’t really scary. Honestly, reading the news about its troubled production was way more entertaining than the resulting film.

The real point I want to get into is how it was a very poor adaptation of the book, like adaptation in name only. The book is about societal collapse and eventually, its reconstruction. It’s accepted that the zombie plague can’t be cured, can’t be prevented, and is always fatal. Conventional methods of warfare are ineffective. Ruthless, amoral methods end up being the only way to survive, from cannibalism to using humans as zombie bait.

The movie shows none of that, except maybe the plague being incurable. Zombies are unstoppable excepting headshots, like in the book, but there is never any modification of tactics beyond that “infect yourself with a curable disease and then the zombies won’t want you” thing. Even though I would think that the rotting undead wouldn’t be that picky. Seeing as they’re dead.

But that’s beside the point. The movie is weak. The societal upheaval is replaced with a man searching for clues about the disease so he can reunite with his family. Granted, the original framing of WORLD WAR Z had no main character (except maybe the guy conducting the interviews), but still. They could have come up with something better than the weaksauce every-action-movie-ever plot they had. They didn’t try to make a WORLD WAR Z movie (or they tried and failed…miserably). They made a zombie movie with World War Z as its title.

Finally, I would like to point out that just because this movie of a book was bad doesn’t mean all book-movies are bad, even the ones that are bad adaptations. The original version of Blade Runner is hardly the adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but most consider it a good movie in its own right. So if you’re not going to make a good adaptation, at least try to make a good movie.

Kitty Pictures!

Because some days, you just don’t feel like writing a blog post.

And be real. You know you want to see them.

Veronica, in her favorite sleeping position.

Seriously.

Sometimes when I’m writing, I’ll be leaning forward, concentrating. And suddenly, I feel a heavy weight pressing up against me.

Isn’t this cute? That’s my mom’s new kitten, who I was taking care of while she was in New York.

She named him Roger. Then she took him to the vet. Now his name is Rosie. And he’s a she.

Language of Confusion: Liar, Liar

Because I wanted to etymologize the word every writer has to look up to use properly, lay, and that can’t be done without looking at lie in all its forms.

Lie as in not true first appeared as a verb in the late twelfth century, while the noun didn’t show up until the end of the seventeenth century. It comes from the Old English legan/ligan and its earlier incarnation leogan, all of which had the same basic meaning we know it as. Further back in Proto Germanic, the word is leugan (the g is still present in other Germanic languages, like Dutch and of course German) and even further back, we have the Proto Indo European leugh, to tell a lie. And I promise, I’m telling the truth. : )

And we all know the word liar, which is what’s known as an agent noun, a word for a person who does something (writer from write, for example). It came into existence in the early thirteenth century, from the Old English leogere, also liar. It doesn’t seem to have a version in Proto Germanic. Instead it seems to have evolved from the West Saxon (southern England, one of the most popular dialects before the Norman invasion in 1066) leogan and the Anglian (northern England, consisting of all the dialects of Mercia and Northumbria) legan, words meaning to lie. The word seems to have appeared because people wanted something to call people who tell untruths. I guess the middle ages were as long as they could go without it.

Then we have the other kind of lie, the one that gives us all the trouble with its tenses. It showed up in the early twelfth century from the Old English licgan, meaning it was similar to the word for lie even then. It evolved from Proto Germanic as well, coming from legjanan, to lie or lay. Lay, as in lay something down, has a very similar etymology. It comes from the Old English lecgan, with an e, which evolved from the Proto Germanic lagjanan, with an a. So apparently the confusion existed even a thousand years ago.

No one ever said languages evolve in a way that makes sense. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve been saying the opposite ever since I started these things.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Dictionary.com

The Free Dictionary

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language