Scary Stories

Big mood.

Language Of Confusion: Mortality

Time for another redo! I definitely didn’t do these words justice when I did them the first time in April of 2011. And what better way to finish the month off than by looking at mortal words?
 
Mortal showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French mortel and classical Latin mortalis, which is just mortal. It’s from the noun mors, death, which can be traced to the Proto Indo European mr-o, to die. That’s from the root word mer-, rub away or harm, or just die. It shows up in a lot of words, some of which make sense, some of which are like, what, really???
 
Morbid of course is related, having shown up in the mid seventeenth century. It comes from the classical Latin morbidus, which means sick or diseased, from mori, to die, and that’s from mer-. Mortify showed up earlier, in the late fourteenth century as mortifien and meaning to kill or destroy the life of. It began to be used in a religious context in the early fifteenth century, where it referred to “subduing the flesh” by abstinence and discipline, and from there turned into humiliate sometime in the late seventeenth century. The word is from the Old French mortefiier, destroy or punish, from the Late Latin mortificare, to kill. And that one’s also from mors, which we already know the story of.
 
Mortgage is related, although that probably won’t surprise anyone who has one. It showed up in the late fourteenth century as morgage, from the Old French morgage, which is literally mort gaige, dead pledge. Mort is of course from mori, so that’s where we get that.
 
Now for everybody’s favorite fun time activity, murder. It showed up in the fourteenth century as either murder or morþer, from the Old English morðer, which is just murder. It’s from the Proto Germanic murthran, and that’s from mer-. So while everything else is Latin, murder is Germanic, but they still come from the same place.

So that’s the mortal words, new and improved. I should probably update my etymology list to show the better version.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Let’s focus on spam. It’s… much less depressing than anything else.

Talk about your lazy spam. They’re not even using words anymore! Unless they’re trying to summon Cthulhu. Do you want to summon Cthulhu? Because this is how you get Cthulhus.

A bored nubile. That’s a perfectly normal way to refer to a totally real person.
 

There’s that weird emoji again. WHAT ARE YOU??? REVEAL TO ME YOUR SECRETS!

Yeah, because if there’s one person you should trust about that it’s someone named “poohie”.

The winky-kissy face emoji definitely clinches my sending my confirmation.

I can’t even. Okay, first of all, haven’t been to an “adult” website, second, my webcam is covered when not in use because I’m paranoid like that, third, it’s definitely been over 21 hours since I got this, and I’m guessing none of my followers here who I’m in frequent contact with have received anything. I think I’m okay.

Another Spider Comic

These stories just keep happening! What am I supposed to do? NOT share them?

Seriously! Two hours!!!

Language Of Confusion: Disasters

Disasters, AKA life constantly these days.
 
Disaster
Disaster showed up sometime in the late sixteenth century, coming from the Middle French désastre, which is from the Italian disastro, which of course is just disaster. The prefix dis- means ill here, and astro literally means star. A disaster is an ill (as in bad luck) star.
 
Catastrophe
Catastrophe actually showed up a bit earlier, in the early sixteenth century, although back then it meant “reversal of what is expected”, generally referring to the turning point in a drama. It actually didn’t mean a disaster until 1748! Catastrophe is from the classical Latin catastropha, a turning point or denouement, and is from the Greek katastrophe, which could mean a disaster as well as a sudden end. It’s from the verb katastrephein, to destroy, overturn, or trample on, a mix of kata, down, while strephein is turn, from the Proto Indo European strebh, wind or turn. A catastrophe is a down turn!
 
Cataclysm
Speaking of cata, cataclysm showed up in the early-mid seventeenth century, where it meant a deluge or flood, particularly in relation to the bible. It’s from the French cataclysme, which is from the classical Latin cataclysmos, which again, means a deluge. That’s of course from the Greek kataklysmos, which also just means deluge. Like I said before, kata means down, and the rest is from klyzein, to deluge. A cataclysm is deluging down on you. Klyzein is also from the Proto Indo European kleue-, to wash or clean. Weirdly enough that’s also the origin word for cloaca.
 
Calamity
Calamity showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning damage or a state of adversity, then meaning a great misfortune about a century later. It’s from the Old French calamite, from the classical Latin calamitatem, disaster. It’s origins before that aren’t really known. People used to think it’s related to the Latin calamus, straw, in the sense of damage to crops being bad, but now it’s mostly thought that’s not true. Thought B is that it’s related to incolumis, which means uninjured, but there’s no evidence of that either. Basically, no one knows where calamity is from and there are no good guesses.
 
Tragedy
Finally today, tragedy showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning a play/work with an unhappy ending, and a tragedy in general in the sixteenth century. It was from the Old French tragedie, from the classical Latin tragedia, tragedy, and that one’s also from Greek, the word tragodia, also just tragedy. And here’s where things get weird. See, in Greek, the word is a mix of two words, tragos and oide. Oide means ode or song, yeah, makes sense, and tragos means tragedy… or possibly goat. Yeah. One theory is that tragedy means “goat song”, because a “satyr play” (as in, satyrs are goats) was a happier play than a traditional tragedy. I mean, the goat connection might not even be real, but still. Wow.
 
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
Encyclopaedia Britannica
University of Ottawa, Canada

From The Spamfiles

Ah, spam. At least it isn’t a cloud of darkness threatening to swallow the entire world.

The accent over the U makes it classy.

Anyone else thinking of owls? Because that’s all this reminds me of.

How vaguely threatening. The spammer knows what you did, and whatever it was, they have a five dollar kit to fix it before everyone finds out.

What is that emoji at the end there? It’s too ovoid to be bread and doesn’t look like any fruit. Okay, this is bugging me way too much. What are you???

He’s the Legal Administrative manager at a Vault! This must be serious.

They’re… bragging about an unsecured card. That really seems like the opposite of what you should be doing.

Dimension X

Not really a spooky comic. Unless you count the apparent existence of the Twilight Zone.