F is for Forgot :(

Yesterday was one of those days.  Woke up at 4:30 for Hebrew class.  Trained my replacement at the bookstore.  Got home and crashed into zombie land and fell to sleep before 10. 

In the midst of the zombie-ing out, I completely forgot to write a post.  😦  Also, I had no inspiration for the letter F. 

I’ll be posting G either tonight, or possibly tomorrow afternoon.  Next week, I’ll get back to business.

Etymology Squared

The idea for this post hit me while shopping with my best friend just this morning (yes, I know I need to do more planning).  We were walking around the Wise Owl Bookstore; I was pondering words that start with the letter E, desperately trying to think of what to write about today.  Out of nowhere, the word “Etymology” threw itself at me.  Maybe the sheer amount of words and paper and ink surrounding me had my sub-conscious-self wondering where all the words come from or something; I don’t know.  So I let the idea percolate in my soon-to-be chocolate-and caffeine-filled brain for a while.  I took the stewing ideas with me to the library and nerded out.  People always say “if you’re going to have a heart attack, what better place than in the hospital;” well, those same people should say “if you’re going to nerd out about words, what better place than in a library?”  Despite the almost-full moon, tonight was a quiet evening with only a couple of crazies.  So there I sat, two dictionaries open, another on my computer screen, Inventing English propped open by my phone, and using my sonic screwdriver pen to jot down notes and quotes relating to the word “etymology.”

So here it is, because today is brought to you by the letter E:

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines etymology as

1. The history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language.
2. A branch of linguistics concerned with etymologies.

The word cognates in that definition had me scratching my head, so here’s that definition as well:

1. Of the same or similar nature.
2. Related by blood. [obviously not relevant here]
3. Related by descent from the same ancestral language.

Now back to the actual etymology of etymology:
Etymology comes from the Middle English which in turn comes from the Old French ethimologie.  That comes from the Latin etymologia.  Can you guess where that comes from?  Etymologia comes from the Greek etumologia.  The second part of the word, logia, is relatively familiar.  It’s found in many common words like biology, astrology, cardiology, etc.  It means “the study of.”  Logia comes from logos, which means “word, speech, discourse.”  The first part of the word, etumon, is not as common.  It means “true sense” and comes from etumos, meaning “true, real, actual.”

Taking that information, we can determine that the meaning of etymology has not changed much or at all since first recorded in the 14^th century.  The literal definition, taken from its original Greek parts, means “the true sense of the word.”

With the resources I have available to me (as much as I desperately want a subscription to the OED website, I sadly can’t afford it), the earliest quote using the word etymology came from Nathan Bailey, the compiler of The Universal Etymological Dictionary: “[Etymology is] a Part of the Grammar, shewing the Original of words, in order to fix their true Meaning and Signification.”

Here’s a few links to more quotes about Etymology:
Goodreads quotes
English Word Information

I hope to bring more etymological tidbits to the blog in the future.  Let me know in the comments what words you’d  be interested in dissecting with me.

Dittemore – Angel Eyes

First things first: I’m not a huge Twilight fan.  I was…before I started comparing the sparkly fairy-vampires to the vampire stories I’ve always loved: stories like Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (seriously, once you’ve seen Angel and Spike, no other vampire can be nearly as alluring, no matter how much he sparkles in the sun).  Once that started bothering me, a few other things messed up my enjoyment of that series as well, but this is not a review of Twilight, so I’m not going in to that here.  The only reason to even bring up Twilight is that the first half of Angel Eyes mirrors Twilight.  I very nearly stopped reading it after the first two chapters because of that.  So we’re replacing sparkly vampires with angels? was my opinion at that point.  You have a female teenaged MC returning to a little town off the Pacific coast after a few years living in the city.  Granted, Brielle (full name: Gabrielle.  That bothered me, too.  That’s just a little too similar to “Bella” for my taste) had a much darker reason for returning to her hometown than Bella did, but more about that in a minute.  Thankfully, Dittemore abandoned the whole love-triangle thing, but on Brielle’s first day back at school, a mysterious new kid shows up, sits next to her in Calculus, and immediately starts flirting with her.  Most of the story is told from Brielle’s POV and she even references Twilight a handful of times.  This mysterious new kid, Jake, also has a unique ability that he uses to fix a major problem for Brielle (I’m trying not to give too many spoilers; you’ll have to read the book to discover the unique ability and the problem).  Finally, he’s forced to explain his family’s secrets to Brielle, who agrees not to tell anyone.

And that’s about where the similarities end.  One of the things Angel Eyes has going for it is complex characters.  Brielle has some serious emotional problems that come from a very dark place in her recent past.  The details of what she’s dealing with are slowly revealed throughout the book, so it really wouldn’t be fair for me to describe it here, but trust me…it’s dark.  She struggles with fears and feelings of guilt.  She alternates between anger at God and doubt in His very existence.  Only with Jake’s steady presence does she begin to heal.  Jake also has a dark past.  Dittemore doesn’t throw any punches in describing his early childhood.  His guardian, Canaan, literally saved his life when he was a young boy.  Canaan is far more than he seems, but he is still very real.

This book is, obviously, about angels.  Real, sent from Heaven from God, angels.  In showing the angels, however, it also includes the fallen angels, the demons.  I’m not sure it’s completely theologically sound, but it’s a great work of imagination about what the world could look like if we could see the spiritual warfare surrounding us.  The demons are terrifying.  C. S. Lewis would be proud. 

I highly recommend this book.  It’s the first in a trilogy and I cannot wait until the second one comes out.  It really reminds us that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but…against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  However: This book is not appropriate for very young teenagers!  The darkness in it is thick enough to cut with a knife and it is terrifying.  Human trafficking happens.  I’m not saying we should sugar-coat things for kids.  They’re going to learn about this eventually.  But that doesn’t mean we should push them to find out now.  My advice on this is the same as my advice to the parents who asked me if their 13-year-olds should be allowed to see The Hunger Games.  Parents: if your child is under 15, you should read this book as well.  Either read it first or read it together, but your child needs to be able to talk to you about it.

This book releases on May 29, 2012.

(By the way, yes I know I cheated on the title.  Deal with it.)