Language of Confusion: Just Kidding

Today the word we’re looking at is…

That’s the last you’ll see of Stick Figure Me for a month. I know you’ll miss her, but you’ll always have etymology.

April Goals

What’s this? My April Goals…in March? What insanity is this?

Well, it’s because the A-to-Z Challenge starts on Friday and the first Tuesday in April, which is normally reserved for my goals’ post, is an etymology post starting with the letter E. I mean, sure, I could double post, but then I would have to think up another post for here, wouldn’t I?

Okay, let’s see how I did last month. Which is this month.

March Goals

1. Finish the pattern (again! Like I never work on it!). All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

I…actually did it. Honest and truly. I even printed it out. It’s done and I…I’m getting a little overcome with emotion right now. Onto the next.

2. Write! Please this time!

No : (, at least nothing that was FUN to write. Sigh…

3. Get all my Challenge posts set up so they’re ready to post. Hey, I might actually be able to do this one!

Yes, I did it! As you will see starting Friday.

Not bad! I feel like I actually accomplished something this month. So onto April…

April Goals

1. The Challenge! Visit at least five new blogs every day. At least finding new ones won’t be a problem!

2. The pattern is done, so do some actual writing this time, dammit!

3. Spring Cleaning. Yeah, I’m making this a goal. Might as well have an easy one :P.

So that’s my plan for April. What about you? Anything interesting going on?

Numbers

My mom happens to be taking a statistics class, which means math, which means she absolutely is asking me questions every five minutes.

At least after this time she wrote down what an irrational number was.

Language of Confusion: Persuaded

Today we’re looking at persuade and its opposite, dissuade. It’s going to be short and sweet.

You’ll realize why that’s hilarious in a minute.

Persuade showed up in the early sixteenth century from the Middle French persuader and classical Latin persuadere, which is just persuade. Persuasion actually showed up earlier, in the late fourteenth century. It comes from the Old French persuasion and classical Latin persuasionem, which means convincing or, well, persuading. Dissuade has a similar history, coming from the Middle French dissuader and classical Latin dissuadere, discourage. Still simple so far, right? Well, just wait.

It’s when you start to break up the words that things get interesting. The prefix per- means strongly or thoroughly while the end of the word comes from suadere, which also means persuade. And dissuade, with the dis- prefix, just means persuade against. Still sensible! But then you look at suadere. It comes from the Proto Indo European swad-, which means…sweet.

Sweet. I’m not kidding here. And where do you think the word sweet comes from? Yep, swad. Sweet is descended from the Old English swete, which is just sweet with the letters switched around. Before that, it’s the Proto Germanic swotja, which in turn comes from swad. Now, the word swad was used for pleasant things in general, not just things that tasted sweet, but it still seems kind of weird that it went from that to persuade. Maybe because you persuade people with sweet words? I guess that might make sense…

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Old English-English Dictionary

Omniglot

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

A-to-Z Challenge Theme Reveal

It’s almost here! Just over a week away now! And here’s my Theme Reveal post, which is why I’m posting a day early.

 

Come on. You know what I’m doing. It’s the same thing I did last year, and the year before that. It’s the same thing I do every Thursday pretty much without exception.

I love etymology. I think it’s fun and weird and interesting. The most bizarre words are related—black and bleach come from the same place, but ass (butt) and ass (donkey) do not. What the frigging HELL.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of bizarre things that are true about the words we say. So yes, I’m doing it again, and I can only assume I’ll do it again next year and the year after that and the year after that. Because it’s cool and there are plenty of subjects to analyze and also I don’t have to come up with any other post ideas for a month.

There you have it. Are you doing a theme for the Challenge this year? Are you doing the Challenge at all? What else do you have planned for April?

Spring In New England

Let’s say it’s…temperamental.

It’s supposed to snow tomorrow. SNOW. And not a brief dusting, either. Four to six inches. On the first day of spring. At least it will probably melt quickly from the heatwave made by my own hatred.

Language of Confusion: -Served

This week: serve and words that end in -serve. I think you’ll be pleasantly amused at how ridiculous it is. I know I was.

Serve showed up in the late twelfth century, coming from the Old French servir and classical Latin servire, both of which basically mean to serve. Now, it’s related to servus, slave, but it doesn’t seem to be related to the suffix -serve. Serve has no further origin, although it might be Etruscan, and -serve has a different history (you’ll see in a minute). They still might be related, but unfortunately I don’t know enough ancient Latin to be sure.

Next, we’re looking at deserve, the only -serve word that’s related to serve. It showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Old French deserver and classical Latin deservire, serve well. The de- prefix here means completely because prefixes are stupid sometimes, so “serve completely” makes sense. And apparently the idea of being served well transformed into being entitled to good service, and that’s why we have deserve.

Observe showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French observer/osserver, which is just observe. That of course comes from the classical Latin observare, which has meanings that range from observe to guard to heed. It’s a ranged word, is what I’m saying. It’s a mix of the prefix ob-, over, and servare, save, keep, or preserve. So it’s to over save? Anyway! Servare can be traced to the Proto Indo European ser-, to protect. And it doesn’t seem to be related to serve. Man, how weird.

Next, reserve. It showed up in the mid fourteenth century and it has a fairly similar origin as observe. It comes from the Old French reserver, withhold, and before that the classical Latin reservare, reserve or hold back. The re- prefix is the back part, and with the save/keep of servare, it’s literally “keep back”. Well, at least that makes sense.

Next, preserve showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Anglo French preservare, Old French preserver, and Medieval Latin  preservare, all of which mean preserve. Before that it’s the Late Latin praeservare, guard beforehand. The prae is just pre-, before, so the word is “to save before”. I guess that works.

Conserve also showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French conserver and classical Latin conservare, which means (dramatic pause)…conserve. Yeah, not a lot of stretching with this word. Anyway, the prefix con- (from com-) is just an intensifier here—amusing aside: several common prefixes can also be intensifiers; I wonder how they decided when to use the actual meaning of the prefix and when to use it as word frosting. So with sevare, to keep, this word is to really keep. Not just save it, but conserve it.

TL;DR: Serve and deserve aren’t related to observe, reserve, preserve and conserve because words are freaking stupid.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

Mysterious Etruscans

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Fordham University

Orbis Latinus