The New Normal

With my mom.

 I did forget my mask once. And now I will never not have her telling me to make sure I have it.

Language Of Confusion: Pronouns, Part II

We’ve got a bunch more pronouns to look at! This should be fun. For a given definition of fun.

She showed up in the mid twelfth century from the Old English seo, which was also meant that and the  as well as she, and also didn’t have the sh pronunciation, so where the hell did that come from? Anyway, seo is from the Proto Indo European so-, which I mentioned a few weeks ago as being the origin of the. Her on the other hand comes from the Old English hire, which, yeah, pronounced like hire. The her hire is actually the dative/genitive form of heo, which meant she before seo did. To sum it up: her is from the word that she replaced.

He comes from the Old English he, which just means he (my eyes are rolling back into my head here). It’s from the Proto Germanic hi-, from the Proto Indo European ki-, from the root ko-, meaning this. Yet not the origin word for this. It is however the origin word for heo, meaning it’s where her comes from. We just replaced the original feminine pronoun with the, and I find that really annoying. And this is also where his and him come from, though there’s no real explanation as to why those are different when her works for both on the feminine side of things.

Next, everyone’s favorite pronoun that’s both singular and plural, they. It showed up in the thirteenth century, and is believed to be Scandinavian in origin. It’s known to be from the Proto Germanic thai and Proto Indo European to-, the origin word for that. Old English actually had plural versions of he and she—kind of like how Spanish has ellos and ellas for plurals—but people just preferred using the neutral they instead, I guess. They and them are from mostly the same origin. Them showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old Norse þeim, which is from thai and to-, and their showed up at the same time from the Old Norse þierra, again, same origin.

Finally, you. It comes from the Old English eow, (pronounced like it’s spelled) you, a dative/accusative plural of þu, thu, where we get thou from. Then that word is from ge, which is actually pronounced ye, and that’s where ye comes from, and all of them are from the Proto Indo European yu, which is just you. Fun fact, although thou and you were different forms of you, thou actually has a different Proto Indo European origin word, tu-, which was the singular form of you, while yu was the plural form. You replaced thou because you was used when addressing someone who was “superior”, then anyone who was a stranger (just to be polite), then just everyone, and by the mid fifteenth century, it was considered rude to address someone with thou unless they were a child or someone you were really close with. Your really isn’t all that different in origin. It’s from the Old English eower, your, and that’s from the same place as eow. No real mystery in that part, unlike with the whole thou thing.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Omniglot

Dictionary.com

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

You know what? More spammers need to be offering to be your buddy. We could all use more buddies right now.

All legitimate charity offerings address you as beneficiary, and include lots of exclamation points.

Here’s what bugs me about these: the strikethrough over the 18. That seems to imply that they don’t want people 18 and over, which of course means this adult dating list is… for children?!!?!

Army majors are always contacting random people for investment proposals while they’re supposed to be out in the field. This kind of thing happens all the time. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.

If you want to keep your photos private, maybe don’t go emailing them to everybody. Also, there’s that 18-strikethrough again. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY???

Just posting this one because I find the name “Hecklinger” to be strangely hilarious. What the Hecklinger are you trying to say? Go to Hecklinger! To Hecklinger and back again.

Seriously, we have to start using it as slang. Who’s with me?

Just A Little

Now, this actually happened before the pandemic, meaning people weren’t wearing masks all the time. I’ve just never gotten around to making a comic out of it.

Language Of Confusion: Pronouns, Part I

I can’t believe it took me this long to get around to pronouns. Common words like that are bound to have weird origins.

First let’s look at I. Now, I went over this when I did my look at the letter I, but that was eight years ago, so it’s time for a refresher. I the pronoun showed up in the twelfth century, a shortening of the Old English ic, which was actually pronounced itsh. Not kidding. It’s from the Proto Germanic ek, from the Proto Indo European eg-, which again is just the pronoun I. But not the letter I.

Me comes from the Old English me, but once upon a time there was also mec, which was the reflexive and accusative form, while me was accusative or dative. Yeah, they were both accusative. I’m just glad they only have one now, because I would hate having to figure out when to use me and when to use mec. My showed up in the thirteenth century as mi and was a short form of mine used before words beginning with consonants—except H. It wasn’t until the fourteenth century that it was used before all pronouns. Mine—the pronoun, not explosive mines or dug mines, obviously—comes from the Old English min, which was pronounced more like the first half of minute. My just became more popular to use, for some reason.

Next, we comes from the Old English we, from the Proto Germanic wejes and Proto Indo European we-. How shockingly straightforward. Us is similarly not totally insane. It comes from the Old English us, which actually would have been pronounced more like oos, and is traced to the Proto Indo European nes-. Yes, it once had an N! That’s why lots of other European languages have some variation of “nos” for their forms of we/us/our. There’s no reason why English dropped the N. We just did. And speaking of our, it comes from the Old English ure, from the Proto Germanic ons, which is also from the PIE nes-. We also lost the N on that one, although Middle English did have ourn and ouren as the plural of our. I think we were just lazy about pronouncing Ns.

Finally today, it. It comes from the Old English hit, yes, with an H that people just stopped saying, and it should be noted that back in Old English, it was the gender neutral pronoun to go with his and her. But then in Middle English, it started referring to an object rather than just being neutral, which gave rise to everyone using they to be neutral and man, is that a whole thing. Anyway! It is from the Proto Germanic khi-, from the Proto Indo European ko-, which means this and is the origin for a bunch of words, like hither and hence. But remember, just because it was once gender neutral doesn’t mean you can get away with calling a person that now!

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

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

August Goals

Oh, wow. It’s August. Normally I’d be thrilled since it’s my birthday month, but… you know. 2020. I’m afraid if I get excited about anything my entire life will catch on fire.

Okay, goals.

July Goals

1. Finish first round of editing notes on WIP. I have over four hundred of them, mostly me telling myself to add more descriptions.

Hey, I did this, adding almost 10K more words because of it. There are still a few things that need work, but will hopefully be taken care of in other edits.

2. After finishing the above, complete the next round of structure edits on the WIP.

I didn’t complete it, but not for lack of trying. I spent the last two weeks working on it (trimming some words from the above edit) and there’s still a bit more to take care of. I’ve been doing way too much telling instead of showing in this WIP.

3. Look at the yearly goals I’m supposed to be working on that I’m sure I’ve made no progress on. Eep.

Taken care of. Now I can forget about these until the end of the year! XD

Actually not bad. As for August…

August Goals

1. Finish the edit from last month and really work on the whole telling instead of showing thing.

2. Get to the next editing pass where I work on descriptions in particular.

3. Birthday! Please don’t let that exclamation point cause the entire thing to be ruined.

This is what I want to do this month. What are you up to?

Weather Or Not

I can’t remember the last time the weather report in the local news has been accurate.

Of course, it was sunny again by that afternoon.