Transposed

Seriously, this happened. Not the first time the water was shut off, but the second.

Kind of a big error to make.

Language Of Confusion: Vest

This one of those words that shows up in kind of weird places. Vest has two definition, the garment you put on and the one you really only see when people say “vested”, as in having a vested interest in something. Could they possibly be related? Somehow, yes.
 
Vest the garment showed up in the early seventeenth century, but the other vest, to put in possession of a person, showed up two centuries before that. The two words actually diverged for a while, as the garment comes from the French veste, jacket, from the Italian vesta, a dress or robe. The other vest comes from the Old French vestir, which actually means to clothe—I guess they figured you’re only clothed in something that you’re in possession of—and that’s from the Medieval Latin vestire, from the classical Latin vestire, to clothe. And that’s where veste/vesta are from, too, and they can be traced even farther back to the Proto Indo European wes-ti, from wes-, to clothe, from eu-, to dress.
 
Weird, right? Most words that begin with vest—like vestibule or vestige—aren’t related at all. The only words beginning with vest that are related are vestment, like a priest wears, and vestry, aroom for garments. You know, where the vestments go. But words with vest in them are another matter.
 
Invest showed up in the late fourteenth century, making it older than either vest, although when it showed up it actually meant “to clothe in the official robes of an office” which we clearly don’t use it as anymore. It actually didn’t start meaning invest money until the early seventeenth century, where it was used in relation to the East Indies in the sense that someone’s capital was given a new form, i.e. dressed up in something new. It comes from the classical Latin investire, to clothe in. The in- is from en (in), plus vestire. To dress in, very self-explanatory, except for the part about dressing your money up in something new.

 
Then there’s divest, which showed up in the mid sixteenth century, though back then it was spelled devest. Now, divest means to strip something away, generally property and possessions. It comes from the French devester, undress, a mix of dis-, away, and vestir from the Old French, which we already know means to clothe. So to divest is to unclothe. More figurative than literal, but nothing too crazy here.
 
Let’s look at one of my favorite words: travesty. It showed up in the late seventeenth century meaning a “literary burlesque of a serious work”, so I guess something like a parody. It’s used pretty much the same way today, just in a more general sense. It comes from the French travesti, from travestir, to disguise, a mix of trans-, across or beyond, and vestire, to clothe. You’re in clothing, but as something else. And that gave us travesty.
 
Finally today, the vest word that is not a vest word. Wear comes from the Old English werian, to wear or clothe. It comes from the Proto Germanic wasin, from the Proto Indo European wos-eyo, which is from wes- and eu-. So wear is from the same place as vest, only through Germanic rather than Latin, and fun fact, to wear down is from the fact that clothes wear out.
 
This was certainly much weirder than last week.

 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin

From The Spamfiles

Uh oh. Only a couple of days left in a month. Time to start scrambling to finish all my goals.

Something’s been confirmed. I have no idea what, but it’s definitely confirmed.

Yes, I’m always emailing myself to verify my informations. It’s how they get confirmed.

“Savannah Kane” sounds like they tried to come up with the most American sounding name they could, and then their email address sounds like someone trying to come up with a Japanese name without knowing anything about Japan.

It’s somewhere lost in the ellipses.

Yes, I totally believe the president is emailing me because he used his full name and told me he was the current president. He does this all the time. We’re good friends.

Please Let It Be Trolling

If it’s not trolling, that means this person really thinks this is how it works, and I don’t know how to handle that.

No one’s this stupid, right? Please someone just tell me no one allegedly an adult is this stupid!

Language Of Confusion: -Fer, Redux, Part III

The last in this series that I’ve actually done before. Plus a couple that are possibly new. I’m way too lazy to double check, though. In any case, all words come from the Proto Indo European bher-, to carry.
 
First, indifferent. We already looked at the weirdness that is differ, and now we’re going to see why putting in- in front of it makes it so different from the not alike definition of differ. It showed up in the late fourteenth century—indifference showed up a bit later, in the mid fifteenth century—meaning impartial when it referred to people, and alike or equal when referring to things. In other words, the opposite of differ, with the in- prefix meaning notor opposite of. Apparently, two things being alike means there’s no preference for one or the other, which means you’re neutral towards them. Eh, less weird than differ.
 
Next, circumference showed up in the late fourteenth century from the classical Latin circumferentia, circumference. It’s from circumferre, to carry around, a mix of the prefix circum-, around in Latin, and ferre, to carry or bear. They really didn’t bother changing much with this one.
 
Vociferous showed up in the early seventeenth century, well after vociferation in the fifteenth century even though I didn’t realize that was a word. The words are both from the classical Latin vociferari, to shout, which is a mix of vox (voice) and ferre. To carry a voice. Has anyone even used vociferous lately?
 
Maybe proliferate will be more interesting. It showed up rather recently, in 1857, as a term in biology. It comes from the French prolifération, which is just proliferation, and that is actually a mix of the classical Latin proles, offspring, and ferre. So proliferation is to carry or bear offspring. Nope, not more interesting.
 
In that vein, there’s fertile, which shoed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Old French fertil and classical Latin fertilis, which means fertile or productive.  And that’s from ferre and so bher-. Man, how did this week turn out even more boring than last week?
 
So that’s the end of the -fer redux words. There are actually a ton more words related to bher-, but I think I’ll take a break from them and look at something else for a while. I’ll get to them eventually!
 
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

From The Spamfiles

Let’s see what ridiculous scams I haven’t fallen for this week…

A very hot, lonely model named Jacob. Usually that’s a guy’s name, so I don’t know if it’s actually pretending to be a (hot, lonely) male model, or it’s just a girl named Jacob.

Are you asking me if it’s an investment in my country or…?

In case you were worried, Greg is still getting email, though it has dropped off quite a bit. Seriously, how did I end up as Greg’s spam message service?

Yes, the FBI is always contacting people through their “travellingbd.com” email addresses. Anything else is clearly an imposter.

Alwar and Jaipur are cities in India, so even if I was interested, this isn’t going to do me much good, unless they’re up for really long commutes.

Fair Warning

They’re still working on the damn water pipes.

If they’re waiting until it’s happening to tell you, it’s not really a warning.