It’s Just A Game Two

Back in February I posted about a quick, fun game that purports just to be Tic Tac Toe… until you play a few rounds and the game starts cheating and it becomes sort of a puzzle where you have to figure out how to outthink the game. I liked it! It only took me about fifteen minutes to beat the first time, too, so it was quick. And now there’s a sequel!

This game is called Tic Tac Two and the first time I played it I was disappointed. It was just like extended levels from the first one. Fun, yeah, but not original like the first one had been. Then I found out I was giving up too soon. See, the first time it flashes the “Thanks For Playing!” screen, you’re not done! You wait and it takes you to a bunch more levels with more unique gameplay, just like the first one.

So yeah, this is one sequel that managed to live up to the first one. It was a lot of fun, and if you have some free time, go check it out!

Another Item For The List

Frankly, it’s my own fault. I knew who I was dealing with.

I wasn’t gone for more than twenty minutes. I really have to be more careful around her.

Language of Confusion: File

File has a lot of meanings. Let’s look at them, shall we?

The first file to show up was the metal file. Although the exact date for the noun isn’t known, the verb (to file something down) showed up in the early thirteenthcentury and it came from the noun. The word comes from the Old English feol, file, which is from the Proto Germanic fihalo, cutting tool, and is thought to be from the Proto Indo European peig-, cut or mark with incision. And I know that word has shown up here before.

But there’s also another file, the one related to documents. That couldn’t possible related, could it?

Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

That file first showed up in the mid fifteenth century, both as a verb and a noun. Originally, the noun meant “string or wire on which documents are strung” and the verb was “place papers in consecutive order for future reference”. At least the latter makes sense. It’s from the French file, which could mean file or a row, while the verb is from the Old French filer, which had the documents-on-a-wire definition, but could also mean to spin thread. Both words are related to the Middle French filer (string documents, apparently that was a popular thing in the middle ages), and the Old French fil, thread or string. They’re from the classical Latin filum, wire or thread, and further back the Proto Indo European gwhis-lom, from gwhi-, thread or tendon.

That gwhi- is related to several other words. First there’s profile, which showed up in the mid seventeenth century as the outline of something and comes from the Italian profilo, outline. It’s a mix of the prefix pro-, which is from per- here and means forward, and filare, from the Late Latin filare, to spin or draw out a line. That word is from filum, which of course is from gwhi-. There’s also defile… but not the defile you’re thinking of. That one’s actually related to foul. No, defile the noun is a narrow passage, which makes sense when you remember that file also means row in French.

Other words related to the row/thread file include filament, fillet, and fiber. Will I get to them some day? Probably!

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

University of Ottawa, Canada

Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

It’s that time of month again! I really don’t feel like coming up with an original post.

Hey, I’m not a senior! I mean, sure, I hurt my knee a few months ago and sometimes my back aches and I can’t see as well at night as I used to oh my god I’m a senior.

I assume that secret is “Cut the child in half.”

Good, because when I’m on the go my oxygen is always going unconcentrated.

I would really hope the price quote would be free. Can you imagine having to pay someone to tell you how much you have to pay them?

Wow. And here I thought tinnitus was caused by problems in the inner ear! But nope. It’s food.

It Was A Chocolate Covered Banana

This is a frequent issue with me…

In my friend’s defense, she did at least catch it before I made an idiot of myself.

I mean, more than usual.

Language of Confusion: -Cise, Part II

More of this! Please let this be the last week!

Incise

We don’t use incise much these days, although incisor and incision are still popular. Incision actually predates incise by two hundred years, as incise showed up in the mid sixteenth century—incisor on the other hand showed up in the seventeenth century. Incise and incisor come from the French inciser, which is from the Old French enciser and incision is from the Old French incision. All are from classical Latin, from incisus (cut) and incisionem, respectively, and both those words come from the verb incidere, to cut. The in- means into here and -cidere, as we discussed last week, comes from the Latin caedere, to cut or hack. Yeah, I’d prefer a doctor making a “cut” into me rather than a “hack”.

Exercise

One of my least favorite activities, exercise showed up in the mid fourteenth century from the Old French exercice and classical Latin exercitium, the noun form of exercise. Its verb form is exercere, to exercise obviously, which is a mix of the prefix ex-, off, and arcere, to keep away, prevent, or coerce, and is from the Proto Indo European ark-, hold, contain, or guard, the origin word for arcane. So exercise isn’t related to the other -cise words. But more importantly it’s related to a word for coerce and I think that’s just extremely apt.

Exorcise

This should be a fun one. Maybe more appropriate for Halloween? Exorcise first showed up in the fifteenth century from the Old French exorciser and Late Latin exorcizare. That word was actually take from Greek, where the word is exorkizein, which meant banish evil spirits… or, you know, exorcise. So this one isn’t related to the -cise words either? And it use to be spelled “exorcize”, but may have changed to an S because of the influence of exercise. No, I can’t believe it either.

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

Orbis Latinus

Now This One’s Definitely A Scam

Most of my spam gets caught in a filter, but every now and then one slips through. I was surprised at this one because of how legit it looked. Most of the messages I get that say “You’re account is ready!” (or something similar) don’t have an email address that actually says it’s from the company they’re claiming to be (most recently I’ve gotten a message from Lyft at “bulknesloadbaharouth.com” because that’s a thing).

So this one was already a step above the others. Look at it:

No glaring spelling errors or anything! I’m stunned! I tried mousing over the links they sent (definitely not clicking), but they didn’t show me the website it would send me to. So I went into the Inspect screen (right click or hit Ctrl+Shift+I). That gives a lot more information.

Now, I’m not expert when it comes to coding. I couldn’t even figure out BASIC. But I can understand some things, including…

Basically, they have a big old redirect in the link they claim is going to Apple. And it’s to “bdlawyersdir”! Come on, spam. You were doing so well before. Now you have me going to something that seems to be called Bad Lawyers Direct.

Anyway, if you get a notice from something that you didn’t sign up for and you’re not totally sure it’s fake, check where the link is going. Inspect is very useful in that regard.

Sincerely, your Spam Maven.