Voom

This is a regular problem for me.

As I’ve mentioned before, Peaches has a thing for donuts. Especially Entenmenn’s.

Language Of Confusion: Fish, Part I

Well, Alex asked, and honestly, I was probably going to look at these sooner rather than later. Might as well do it now. I’m going to stick with the most common names because there are a lot of them.

Fish

The word that started this mess comes from the Old English fisc, fish, and in spite of the C there, it’s actually pronounced the same. The verb fish actually has a slightly different origin word, as its Old English form is fiscian. I guess they liked making things confusing so they dropped the last syllable. Both words come from the Proto Germanic fiskaz, which might be from the Proto Indo European pisk-, fish, which is definitely the origin for Pisces. But I love how they’re not actually sure it’s where fish comes from.

Grouper

Unfortunately, there’s not much known about this word. It showed up in the late seventeenth century from the Portuguese garupa, but where they got it is unknown (it’s possibly South American in origin). However one thing is for certain: it’s not related to group. At all.

Flounder

Flounder showed up in the fourteenth century meaning the fish—the other definition, to flounder, showed up in the sixteenth century, and while it may be from the fish, it’s not definitely known, and obviously the fish came first. The fish comes from the Anglo French floundre, from the Old North French flondre, Old Norse flydhra, and Proto Germanic flunthrjo. That’s from the Proto Indo European plat-, the origin word for flat. A flounder is a flat fish!

Tuna

Tuna is a fairly recent word, having shown up in 1881 from the American Spanish (specifically California) tuna. That’s from the Spanish atun, tuna, which is actually taken from the Arabic tun, which is then from the classical Latin thunnus, which also means tuna. That word certainly went a long route to English. If you’re wondering what we called tuna before… it was tunny. Yeah. That word showed up in the sixteenth century, thought to be from the Middle French thon and Old Provençal ton, which is also from thunnus.

Salmon

Salmon showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Anglo French samoun, Old French salmun, and classical Latin salmonem, salmon. Which, for the record, pronounced the L. Some people think that’s from the verb salire, to jump, and other people think the word is Celtic in origin. Salmon also replaced the previous Old English word for the fish, laex, which is the origin for lox, which is also still used sometimes when referring to it.

I have to say, these were weirder than I expected. I can’t wait to see what next week brings.

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

University of Ottawa, Canada

Fordham University

Indiana University Bloomington

From The Spamfiles

Yay, it’s time for spam again! I can sense your excitement from here.

Okay, I actually looked this guy up to see if he was real, and no, apparently he’s not. The only John Blairs I’ve been able to find are way older than 25. Seriously, if something’s that easily googled, maybe don’t go lying about it.

Sigh. I could really use five thousand dollars about now.

No, my address is ……………………………………………………

Look at this perfectly legitimate twitter follower. You were made to do hard thinks.

Why are there bombs? Why are there always bombs on these??? WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY INTEND BY THAT????? WHY DOES THIS BOTHER ME SO MUCH???????

Now they’re spamming solutions for spamming. Cheers to them for actually picking something I’d want this time for maybe the first time ever.

Lure Light

The best laid plans…

Language Of Confusion: Fan-dom

Now, I already did fanatic not that long ago when I looked at words meaning crazy, but quick recap: it’s actually from the classical Latin word festus, which means holiday. The word fan that’s short for that showed up in 1889 as a word for baseball enthusiasts. Now, for the rest of the fan words.

Fancy isn’t related to the above words. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century as fantsy, which is actually a contraction of fantasy. Fantasy showed up in the early fourteenth century meaning illusory appearance, or whimsical notion—the latter of which is what fancy used to mean before evolving to mean imagination, and then in 1751, meaning elegance. For some reason. Fantasy comes from the Old French fantasie/phantasie, from the classical Latin phantasia, fantasy, from the Greek phantasia, imagination. That word is related to phantazesthai, imagine, from phantos, phantom, from phainesthai, literally “it seems”, from phainein, to show or bring to light. And that one’s traced to the Proto Indo European bha-, to shine. Man, what a rabbit hole that one turned out to be.

Now let’s go back to the other kind of fan, the one you use to cool yourself off with. The noun of the word comes from the Old English fann, while the verb from was fannian, and the words actually had to do with sorting grain. Basically, a fann was something to shovel grain with, and a fannian was the process of doing so. The words come from the classical Latin vannus (there was no v in Old English), which is a fan for, again, sorting grain. One theory is that the word is related to ventus, wind, which would bring things full circle considering what we use fans for these days. But it also might be another one of these huge coincidences that seem to be eighty percent of etymology posts.

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

May Goals

Well, we survived April. It wasn’t a decade long like March was, but it was at least a few years. I think I spent the entire time screaming. So if you heard a high pitched “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” that was me.

Did I have goals for last month? It was so long ago I can’t remember.

April Goals

1. Finish edits for the other WIP so it’s at the point where it’s ready for beta readers.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do this. I wanted to, but every time I opened the file I couldn’t think about anything but the… you know.

2. Finally finish working on the notes I made for WIP’s sequel.

Same as above. Honestly, I’m not blaming myself for this one. It was a really tough month to be a human being.

3. Find a way not to be overwhelmed.

I did do this, although I did it by starting a completely new WIP. Yeah. Well, it was the only thing that distracted me.

That was April. Now for May.

May Goals

1. Get to 50K on the new WIP. Since I’m already at 10K and I just started a week ago, this shouldn’t be a problem.

2. If I have the time, keep working on my old projects that I really shouldn’t abandon.

3. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. This really isn’t a goal. Just something I needed to get out.

What are you doing this month? Stay safe out there (or preferably isolated in your homes).

Masking

I can’t even make up something as insane as the actual conversations I have with my mom.

The only lie about this is it was by text. It just seems kind of pointless to do just that in a comic, though. Also the mask she got for me is black, so she really does know what I like after all.