"PROF. HOFF.man"

Crowley: "How?! There was a miracle blocker in the room. I saw you put it back in the envelope."

Aziraphale: "Who needs a miracle when you've had private lessons from the great (heavily emphasizes next two syllables for extra wordplay significance) *PROF.* *HOFF.*man himself?"

Prof: Abbreviation of professor; from profess, meaning to admit aloud, to declare.

Hoff: Welsh term of endearment meaning my dear, my beloved, my favorite.

Duke, -duce, Herzog & ziehen

Duke comes from the Latin word dux (leader). It's related to the verb dūcere (to lead; pull), whence English -duce, for example in to seduce (whose original Latin meaning was 'to lead astray').

The second part of German Herzog (duke) is cognate to dux. This part, -zog, is related to the German verb ziehen (to pull), cognate of dūcere.

Old English had cognates of both words. Its counterpart of Herzog was heretoga (army leader). In Middle English it became heretowe, which would've become modern *hartow. The Old English cognate of ziehen was tēon. This verb would've become *to tee if it had continued to exist. See the infographic for information about its past tense and past participle.

Fact: The earliest reliably dated use of the phrase “fucked up” appears in the court records of a US Navy court-martial case from 1863; the way the phrase is used suggests that its meaning was already well known at the time, but this is the first known printed record of it that we can confidently put a date to.

Additional fact: Bram Stoker’s Dracula is set in 1897.

Conclusion: It would not anachronistic for your Dracula fanfic to have a character describe the Count as a fucked up old man.

little poll

You might have thought card sharks and loan sharks were named after the predatory fish, but apparently there’s a decent chance it’s the other way around from an old Dutch word meaning “person that takes unfair advantage of other people”. Before that they were known in English as a haye or dogfish, which means sometime in the ~1400s enough English sailors started saying “don’t get in the water, it’s infested with those jerks”

okay so I was doing a Research™️ about ancient Greek etymology as one does and I found some Things that made me want to Violently Claw My Arms Off please allow me to force feed you my discoveries

So there are 2 words for "not" in ancient Greek, depending on the context: ou and mē. Having introduced himself in the Cyclops episode as " ou tis", or No-man, he then stabs Polyphemus in the eye. When Polyphemus' brothers come to check on him, they say this:

"... surely no man [mē tis] is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man [mē tis] is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?"

Right after this, after the other cyclopes ditch Polyphemus, Odysseus's inner monologue goes something like this:

"Then they went away, and I laughed inwardly at the success of my clever strategem [metis]." (pronounced mEH-Tis)

Now, there's a difference between mē tis and metis. [mē tis] (pronounced mEH-Tis with a space between the syllables) is the literal translation for "no man". Metis is a word for extreme intelligence/cunning, which is something Odysseus is famous for.

Now, there are several examples of abuse of metis/intelligence in the Odyssey, but I think the juxtaposition between [mē tis], or the concept of anonymity, and metis, or extreme intelligence, is REALLY interesting. Odysseus's adoption of the title "No-man" was characteristic of metis--it was a really smart move that simultaneously hid him from the cyclops and avoided any future consequences. It was a highly effective strategy all wrapped up in a nest little package with a bow on it.

But when he revealed himself as Odysseus of Ithaca, effectively throwing off No-man (anonymity and [mē tis]), that was characterized as idiocy--he's essentially doxxed himself, and now he's doing to (spoiler alert) get tossed around the Mediterranean by Poseidon for the next 10 years.

This is really interesting because it lets you see the parallels/codependency between metis(intelligence) and humility. When Odysseus refused to allow himself to go unnoticed (hubris) he suffered for it. BUT when he declined instant glory/satisfaction (kleos) in order to achieve the long term goal of survival, he was rewarded with Athena's favor (pay attention. This part is important).

And this situation repeats itself MULTIPLE TIMES in the Odyssey--the EXACT SAME THING happens near the end of the book, with the suitors. When. Odysseus is dressed as a beggar and the suitors/Antinious are abusing him, he ACTIVELY CHOOSES not to react--he doesn't stand up and rip off his disguise and start hollering "TIS I, ODYSSEUS OF ITHACA! FEAR MY WRATH"

No. He sits there patiently and waits. He plans and schemes and quietly orchestrates their downfall without alerting them of it. Why? Because he learned his lesson the first time this happened. He buried his rage and adopted what was, according to Grace LA Franz, a more feminine form of metis, weaving a web of destruction for his enemies that ultimately resulted in their total annihilation (see Weaving a Way to Nostos: Odysseus and Feminine Metis in the Odyssey by Grace LaFranz). His patience allowed him to win the whole prize--no questions asked, no 10-year-long-business-trip strings attached--just the sweetness of a full victory. And he is, once again, rewarded with Athena's favor--both in the battle with the suitors and in the aftermath (cleanup/reuniting with Penelope).

This really reinforces the idea in the Odyssey that Odysseus's defining characteristic is not just his intelligence--it's his ability to learn from his mistakes. He used what he learned at the Lotus Eaters Island against Polyphemus--the Lotus Eaters drugged his men, so he drugged Polyphemus. He used what he learned from Circe and Polyphemus against the suitors--Circe used false sweetness and honeyed words to lure his men into a trap, so that's exactly what he did to the suitors. His hubris on Polyphemus' island cost his whole crew their lives, so he intentionally left well enough alone until the right time. He didn't just learn from his failures--he turned them into BATTLE STRATEGY.

i don't care what anyone says that is completely totally and objectively awesome

A Magical Taxonomy

Warlock: from wær (old English, “pact/oath”) + loga (proto-Germanic, “liar”) + hard “-ck” (Scottish English); Oathbreaker (contextually; breaker of Baptismal Oaths; hence also Apostate)

Wizard: from Wis (old English, “knowledgeable”) + -ard (same, “too much of”); Possessor of too much knowledge

Witch: from weyk (proto-indo-European, “apart, separated, different”)[connotations akin to Latin’s “Sacre”]; Sacred Outsider

Sorcerer: from Sors (Latin, “Fate”) and Ser (same,“to bind”); Fate Manipulator

Druid: from dru (proto-Celtic, “Oak”) + weyd (same, “to see”); Oak-Seer, or Tree-Knower

Cleric: from kleros (Ancient Greek, “lots/ casting lots/ drawing lots”) [contextually; public servants were selected by drawing lots, as opposed to, say, voting]; Public Servant / Clerk

Bard: from bard (proto-Celtic, “Bard”); Bard

Transcendentalism is a hard word to grasp, so it's important to look at the etymology of it so you can parse its meaning. Trans - to be beyond or across Cen - one hundred Dental - Teeth Ism - the belief of So taken all together, transcendentalism means "the belief that one should have beyond one hundred teeth"

Hope this helps!

she gets me she just does

did you know? the word "footage" in reference to video originally referred to the length of the physical film strip that something was recorded on. a longer recording would use up more feet of film, and thus would have "more footage"! cool, huh?

THIS POST IS ABOUT ACTUAL ETYMOLOGY. DO NOT ADD MORE EXAMPLES OF THE ORIGINS OF WORDS WITHOUT FACT CHECKING FIRST.

I love love love etymology because it's like every word has a back story intertwined with so many other words and through that you see ideas and culture and history and people and it's so beautiful okay I love word stories

Ah pasta, from the word pasta, originally pasta, translated from pasta

The way the word "wasteland" is used in fantasy fiction can crash into its historical usage in interesting ways because the word "waste" in this context used to just mean "uncultivated" (i.e., not being used for food production), so you see the word "wasteland" in historical documents, and based on the fantasy trope you're picturing, like, volcanoes and shit, and then the wasteland in question is literally just a forest.

So an interesting thing about Latin is that the word for "sword" is "gladius" and the word for "scabbard" is "vagina".

But here's the weird thing: in classical times, "gladius" was used as a slang word for "penis", but "vagina" was not used as a slang word for "vagina"!

The weird thing is that their term for the "vagina" was "vulva". Now... I'm not being lazy here and meaning the internal and external genitals as "vagina": when they said "vulva", they only meant the internal genitals. They even called the womb "vulva".

Anyways. For the external genitals, what we now would say "vulva" for, they'd use... "cunnus", probably? That's a vulgar word, I'm not even sure what you'd use if you weren't trying to be derogatory.

Although it's amusing to find out that "cunnus" isn't related to "cunt" or "cunny" at all. "cunt" comes from Proto-Germanic (where it meant the same, just not vulgar), and "cunny" goes back to a different Proto-Germanic word that meant "to know".

Anyway the worst Latin-dervived term for female genitalia is "pudendum/pudenda", because it was directly taken from medieval (I believe?) Latin where it meant the same, but if you know latin you can also translate it to which it means: "that whereof one ought to feel shame". Yeah, it's off the verb "pudeō/pudēro": "to shame". Fucking yikes.

And along those lines, reportedly a roman slang term for the female genitalia was "culpa", which means a fault or defect. Yikes again.

The final bit of weirdness is that "genitalia" is also a Latin word: but it doesn't mean the genitals, not specifically. It's instead a neutral plural for an adjective that means "related to birth or production".

So yeah. It's weird that English has so many Latin roots and then a fuck ton of weird false-friends in this area. I've heard that some of this is because of medieval renaming to move away from more sexualized terms (that's actually how we got the term "penis", which is a latin word meaning "tail"), but I can't completely verify that.

All this is on top of the consistent thing where English has that fun thing where we often have two words for something, and the one with Germanic roots will be vulgar, and the one with Latin roots will be formal. Fucking is vulgar, copulation is formal. Rude germanic barbarians shit, refined roman citizens defecate. the germanic peasants raise a cow , but when the anglo-saxon upperclass see it on their plate, it's beef.