May Goals

Well, as predicted, April was a pretty ugh month. I don’t even remember what I was supposed to be working on.
 
April Goals
1. Finish the web serial edits. Not sure I’ll be able to get there, but I should be able to get close.
I actually finished this! It’s a miracle! I thought it might take another month. I think it’s pretty good, but of course I’m horrible at judging my own work.
 
2. Update my etymology page. You know what a treat this always is. Stupid Google.
I did this, though as usual I was unable to get rid of the horrible space between all the words. I swear, Google is breaking Blogger bit by bit to drive us all away. It would explain why it’s suddenly not emailing me blog comments anymore.
 
3. Find some way to get my work out there more. Not that I have any idea how to do this…
As if I was able to figure this out. I really wish there was a list of clear, specific instructions for this sort of thing.
 
Okay, I guess. I’m not really looking forward to the stress May’s going to bring with it, though.
 
May Goals
1. Plan out the second part of the web serial.
 
2. Keep working on marketing—why does this have to be so hard?
 
3. Try to recharge in some way so the stress doesn’t cause me to spontaneously combust.
 
What do you want to do this May? Anything fun? If you’ve signed up for blog comments to be emailed to you, are you still getting them?

Nozzle

When my mom has something she can’t unscrew, she calls me.

I found her a different hose.

FYI: blogger seems to be emailing me comments again, so yay?

Language Of Confusion: Warning, Etymology Ahead, Part II

All these words are from the Proto Indo European wer-, to cover, which gave us things like warren and warrant, and also things like garnish because words are dumb. And this week is more of the same.
 
Now, like I said, wer- meant to cover. Cover itself showed up in the mid twelfth century, so it’s pretty dang old. It comes from the Old French covrir, and classical Latin coperire, to cover. The co- comes from the prefix com-, though it’s thought to only be intensive here, while the rest is from operire, to close or cover. That’s taken from the Proto Indo European op-wer-yo-, where the op- means over and is the origin of the prefix epi-, and wer- is to cover. To cover over just means to really cover something. And they threw the com- prefix in there to emphasize it even more.
 
Covert is also from cover. It showed up in the fourteenth century from the Old French covert, which is the past participle of covrir. Then there’s discover, also from the fourteenth century. In Old French, it’s descovrir, which is taken from the Medieval Latin discoperire, which you may notice is also just cover with the dis- prefix. Dis- means “the opposite of”, so discovering is the opposite of covering something. I can see that.
 
Then there’s curfew. Really. It showed up in the early fourteenth century meaning the ringing of a bell at a fixed hour, which by the nineteenth century morphed to mean the restriction of movement after a certain time. The word is from the Anglo French coeverfu, from the Old French cuevrefeu, which is from covrir plus the word feu, which means fire—one of the reasons the curfew bell was rung was to warn people to put out their fires before going to sleep. A warning to cover your fire now means curfew.
 
The next word we’ll be looking at—prepare yourselves—is kerchief. Which is a covering, so I guess you can see how it comes from to cover. It showed up in the early thirteenth century where it could be spelled kovrechief, and it meant the same thing as we’d use it as. It’s from the Anglo French courchief, which literally meant “cover head”. The first part is from couvrir, which is from the Old French covrir, while the chief part means head, more literally than we use it these days. Yes, chief once literally meant head, and it’s from the Vulgar Latin capum, head, classical Latin caput, again, head, and the Proto Indo European word for head kaput-, and somehow that’s the origin for kaput, as in dead/broken. And I can’t even make this up, the reason why is because German took a French phrase meaning “to make a bonnet” as a way to say you’re taking all the tricks in a card game, when the French used the phrase in relation to sailing during a storm. I know it’s not related to cover, which we’re looking at, but it might be the stupidest etymology I’ve ever read.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

I’m sure you’re all relieved to know there’s still plenty of spam.

What is with the double periods? Not quite an ellipsis, not quite the end of a sentence, and definitely not what’s supposed to go between words.

While I do feel it’s important to be aware of the signs of a potential heart attack, there’s no way this isn’t just trying to get me to buy something, their “heart health trick” I assume.

Honestly, a live show with 30K Ukrainian Beauties is not what I expected when I read the name “Falcon Heating”.

Sometimes I look at these and say to myself, are there people out there this actually works on? People who believe that random people will email them asking to go partners on some scheme? And then I realize the answer is yes, and that makes me very sad.
 

“This new follower is reading a book! Maybe she’s real! No, wait, she’s naked, never mind.”

Fresh Water

A sequel to this comic. Not kidding, it took her about five seconds.

It seems like she’s less interested in the freshness of the water than just stealing from me.

Language Of Confusion: Warning, Etymology Ahead, Part I

I’m really pleased with this title, as we’re looking at words related to warn this week, as well as all the crazy words its related to. Though I guess in terms of etymology, it’s only slightly above average.
 
Warn itself comes from the Old English warnian, which is just warn, no big surprises there. That’s from the Proto Germanic waronan, which is from the Proto Indo European wer-, to cover—there are actually other versions of wer-, which are basically homonyms that have totally different meanings, some of which I’ve already looked at! But right now we’ll just be looking at the ones related to the to cover one.
 
It’s kind of appropriate that to cover would lead to warn. It also leads to the word warrant, which also gives us warrantee (which is just warrant with an -ee at the end). Warrant showed up in the thirteenth century, but back then it meant protector or defender, which makes a lot more sense when you think of to cover. It took on the meaning of to receive permission from a superior in the fourteenth century, and then a document conveying authority in the sixteenth century, and now we don’t use it at all in the original sense. It comes from the Old North French warant, Frankish warand, and before that the Proto Germanic war-, to warn or guard, and unsurprisingly that’s from wer-.
 
But what about warren? You know, like a living space for animals? Yeah, that’s related. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the Anglo French/Old North French warenne, a hunting reserve. It’s thought to be from warir, defend or keep, which is also from the Proto Germanic war-, but man, of words you wouldn’t think would be related to warn… And this is only the beginning.
 
That’s literally the last word beginning with W that’s from wer-. Next is garment, which I’m pretty sure I’ve looked at before but if I did, it was a long time ago, so whatever. And hey, a garment is a covering! It showed up in the fifteenth century, though it was also here as garnement in the fourteenth century. It’s from the Old French garnement, from the verb garnir, to adorn or provide. It’s weird to think of garment and warn as related, but you can kind of see it.
 
Garnish is a little more confusing. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, strictly meaning to decorate or adorn, before also meaning to arm yourself or to embellish, and then in the sixteenth century it also meant “to warn or serve notice for attachment to funds” in the legal sense. By the eighteenth century, it was also used to mean to decorate a table, so that’s three really different definitions that aren’t used all that much today. Anyway, it’s from the Old French garniss, which is also from garnir, like in garment. Garnir is from the Frankish warnjan, from the Proto Germanic warnon, which is related to the origin word of warn and from wer-. I mean, it makes sense, but wow, what a journey.
 
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
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

Had a nice influx of spam recently.

This probably would have worked better before Netflix ran their company into the toilet with terrible shows and movies. I do however buy that they’d be desperate enough to offer ninety dollars to get people to watch one of their shows.

Probably not a good idea to get a future prediction from someone who can’t spell future.

This is such a horrifying meeting of racism and sexism. That’s it. That’s all I have to say.

 

Clearly one of the important things she has to tell me is not how to use periods. Apparently I’m #62 now.

On a spam post no less! If you poison people with the herbs you give them and they die, all their diseases do go away, so it’s not incorrect.