Egypt was a land of plenty - the Nile’s yearly inundation allowed for a wealth of food, making enough food so everyone in the country could be fed for a year and still have more left over.
Surprisingly, most Egyptians were basicaly vegetarian. Meat was expensive and it didn’t last without refrigeration, so those in the middle and lower class couldn’t have it often. It led the majority into a vegetarian diet consisting of bread, beer, chickpeas, lentils, onions, garlic, sesame, corn, barley, papyrus, flax, lettuce, and at Thebes during the New Kingdom, opium poppy.
When meat was eaten, there was a variety of choices. These included cattle, goats, lambs, sheeps, poultry, and for those who hunted it, antelope. Fish was a viable option, but it wasn’t commonly eaten as a specific specie of fish was considered taboo to eat. In the Osiris myth, when Set sent Osiris’ body parts down the river, a fish ate Osiris’ penis and consequently became a bad omen. However this explanation is only according to Plutarch - not an Egyptian source.
Honey was something past just food.
It was used in near everything, by both lower and higher class, leading to the belief that it was mass-produced. The sweet drink was used in sweetening food, of course, but also in wounds to heal and prevent infection.
The idea of mass-production is backed up by several facts, first being the sheer amount needed to fuel all of Egypt. Beekeepers are mentioned on stelas, even a royal beekeeper. Man-made hives are also mentioned, made of mud or clay from the Nile and usually shaped as a pipe. These hives were moved up and down the Nile all year long so the bees could pollinate in every month. The last piece of proof is the fact that people today are still doing that, this time with better transportation than a wooden boat.
Jars of honey are also mentioned in divorce forms, of all things. A contract found said, “I take thee to wife… and promise to deliver to thee yearly twelve jars of honey.” This gives honey a high status, acting as a form of currency along with the wheat staple and gold rings.
The film is based on the manga Nono-chan by Hisaichi Ishii, which was originally just several four-panel comic strips. Because of this, My Neighbors the Yamadas does not follow one single storyline, but rather is made up of 5-15 minute vingettes.
The movie is was the third in Studio Ghibli’s lineup to be directed by Isao Takahata, his works before this being Grave of the Fireflies (1988) & Only Yesterday (1991).
Different from other Ghibli works with done with traditional oil paint-on-cel animation, the film is done in watercolor, giving it an almost unfinished look. In order to achieve this look, the production team had to draw all of the frames on computers, making this the first Studio Ghibli movie to be fully digitally animated.
David Ogden Stiers plays the Narrator in the English dub of the film. You may also recognize Stiers from his performance as Governor Ratcliff in Disney’s Pocahontas.
The film won an Excellence Award for Animation at the 1999 Japanese Media Arts Festival
That hearing infants come with the potential to distinguish/produce all sorts of language sounds, and then their brains start paring down to the ones they’ll need as they hear more speech around them. For example, babies born to people who don’t have contrastive aspirated vs. unaspirated [p] in their language can differentiate /pʰ/ from /p/, but by the time they’re toddlers they’ll start losing that skill as their brains prioritize relevance of speech sounds.
ALSO, the paradigms of “how you should talk to your kids for their best language development” are based a lot on white Western individualism. Throughout the world, there are various attitudes toward children and language, and all of them produce successful speakers/signers! In some cultures, babies are spoken to in simplified baby talk; in others, they are spoken to as adults; in others, children are not directly addressed until they can speak in return so they pick up ambient language. Some cultures expect children to speak in simple but concrete phrases; some expect children to learn oral traditions first; and some expect children to speak in indirect metaphorical language and gain concreteness as they grow.
All of these methods are successful, and it’s harmful to shame non-USian caregivers for not obeying the school curriculum, or to shame working/busy caregivers for not reading a book to their kid every night and teaching them a Pimsleur course every morning.
Donna Tobias - the first woman to graduate from the US Navy’s Deep Sea Diving School in 1975.
Brave women of the Red Cross hitting the beach at Normandy.
Dottie Kamenshek was called the best player in women’s baseball and was once recruited to play for a men’s professional team.
Kate Warne - Private Detective. Born in New York City, almost nothing is known of her prior to 1856 when, as a young widow, she answered an employment advertisement placed by Alan Pinkerton. She was one of four new agents the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired that year and proved to be a natural, taking to undercover work easily. She had taken part in embezzlement and railroad security cases when in 1861 the Pinkertons developed the first lead about an anti-Lincoln conspiracy.
Catherine Leroy, female photographer in Vietnam.
The three women pictured in this incredible photograph from 1885 – Anandibai Joshi of India, Keiko Okami of Japan, and Sabat Islambouli of Syria – each became the first licensed female doctors in their respective countries. The three were students at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania; one of the only places in the world at the time where women could study medicine.
Female Samurai Warrior - Onno-Bugeisha - Female warrior belonging to the Japanese upper class. Many women engaged in battle, commonly alongside samurai men. They were members of the bushi (samurai) class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honour in times of war.
One of the most feared of all London street gangs from the late 1880’s was a group of female toughs known as the Clockwork Oranges. They woulde later inspire Anthony burgess’ most notorious novel. Their main Rivals were the All-female “the Forty Elephants” gang.
Maureen Dunlop de Popp, Pioneering female pilot who flew Spitfires during Second World War. She joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in 1942 and became one of a small group of female pilots who were trained to fly 38 types of aircraft.
In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon. The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.
Women have always participated in fighting; whether that is in war or in breaking down barriers that have been set in front of us by society.
Take inspiration from our foremothers and continue breaking down barriers, wherever you are.
-FemaleWarrior, She/They
nothing to do with my blog but how could I not reblog this???
Hey, quick point - your image for Onna Bugeisha is actually a kabuki actress. I know, because I’ve used the image for presentations on the subject. In her stead may I introduce Niijima Yae, aka Yamamoto Yaeko.
Born in 1845.
In 1868, fought at the Battle of Aizu. Her father was the gunnery instructor, and she was trained on a Spencer carbine, which she used to defend the castle.
1871, divorced her husband and went to Kyoto to find her brother, who had been taken as a POW.
1871-1898, remarried a western-educated man, co-founded two schools (including a girls’ school), became a certified Tea Master and flower arranging instructor.
1890, following the death of her husband, became a Red Cross nurse. Served in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) leading a team of 40 nurses, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). Decorated for her service in both.
I’m proud of people adding their own knowledge to this.
“but adding women to [insert title] isn’t accurate!” women existed back then too, baby. history was just written by men, for men
It’s RUTTING SEASON!!!! Last weekend I spent some time in CO with a few elk herds so in tribute here are some fun facts about elk:
1. Elk antlers have been known to grow as much as one inch a day. The size of an elk’s antlers depends on the amount of sunlight the elk gets; sunlight causes a boost in testosterone levels, causing the antlers to grow.
2. As a mating ritual, bulls will sometimes dig a hole in the ground, fill it with their own urine and bathe in it, in the hope that the scent will attract a mate.
3. Elk can weigh up to 700 pounds.
4. They consume an average of 20 pounds of vegetation daily.
5. Males advertise this territory and their status through bugling.
Re: the last post, the article mentions that some places use clams to test the toxicity of the water. It’s like that in Warsaw- we get our water from the river, and the main water pump has 8 clams that have triggers attached to their shells. If the water gets too toxic, they close, and the triggers shut off the city water supply automatically.
The clams are just better at measuring the water quality than any man-made sensors.
Yuan Zai in the drama was arguably even more manipulative than Lin Jiulang, and this is somewhat historically accurate, though like Lin Jiulang’s historical counterpart Li Linfu, Yuan Zai also had some accomplishments, like promoting people who were good at finances. However, after he became the chancellor during Emperor Daizong’s reign (Daizong is the eldest son of Suzong), he became extremely corrupt, only giving promotions to people who gave him gifts. While chancellor, Yuan Zai was also a major political opponent against Li Bi. But because he was corrupt, and because people envied his power within the court, Yuan Zai gradually fell out of favor with Emperor Daizong. Eventually, Yuan Zai (and his entire family) was ordered to commit suicide.
Yuan Zai’s relationship with his wife Wang Yunxiu, however, was very different from the depiction in the drama. Yuan Zai married Wang Yunxiu even before he came to Chang'an in pursuit of a better career. In fact, Wang Yunxiu was the one who encouraged him to do so. Before setting out for Chang'an, the pair exchanged poems with each other (both poems are in the collection “Complete Collection of Tang-era Poems”, or 《全唐诗》), so the love was probably mutual and not manufactured for a purpose.
Yao Runeng (姚汝能):
Historically, Yao Runeng was not the descendant of the famous Tang dynasty chancellor Yao Chong (姚崇). Actually, he was a relative “nobody”, just like Zhang Xiaojing. So it was fitting that the real Yao Runeng would be the author of the book (“The Deeds of An Lushan”) that contained the only real record about Zhang Xiaojing.
About that book he wrote: it’s been speculated that the big boss behind the Persian gold coins was An Lushan, who was the perpetrator of the rebellion that destroyed Chang'an a mere 10 years later. Since Yao Runeng was given a gold coin in the last episode, him being the real-life author of a book about An Lushan and the rebellion becomes rather interesting.
Cheng Shen (程参)/ historical: Cen Shen (岑參):
Like He Zhizhang, Cen Shen was also known more for his poetry. While He Zhizhang was more well-known but only has 19 surviving poems, Cen Shen has a whopping 360 surviving poems, mostly about his travels near the border.
Yan Yuhuan (严羽幻)/ historical: Yang Yuhuan (楊玉環):
Yan Yuhuan’s historical counterpart, Yang Yuhuan, is arguably the most historically famous female from the drama. Heck, she might be one of the the most famous women from Chinese history, period. Her fame came from her looks, so much so that she became one of the four most beautiful women of Chinese history. It was no wonder that Li Longji/Xuanzong (the emperor depicted in the drama) was captivated by her. She was also distantly related to Yang Guozhong, the treacherous chancellor that Zhang Xiaojing killed (according to Yao Runeng’s book).
Unfortunately for Yang Yuhuan, during the rebellion, everyone thought she was the cause of the unrest (not true; there were many many other causes) and a “bad influence” for the emperor , so the emperor ordered her to hang herself. In short, she became another sacrifice in a society controlled by men.
Xu Hezi (许合子)/ historical: Xu Hezi (許鶴子):
If the real Yan Yuhuan’s story was the tragedy of a beautiful Tang-era woman, the real Xu Hezi’s story was the tragedy of a Tang-era female entertainer. The historical Xu Hezi was also a famous singer of commoner descent, but when the rebellion happened, she was forced to escape Chang'an, and died a lowly entertainer/prostitute.
Guo Lishi (郭利仕)/ historical: Gao Lishi (高力士):
Li Bi’s “uncle Guo” wasn’t explicitly mentioned as a eunuch in the drama, though his headwear gave it away (his headwear is called “long jin”/籠巾, and is usually reserved for eunuchs in historical dramas). Historically, Gao Lishi was a powerful eunuch who was first favored by Wu Zetian (the first and only female Chinese emperor), then Li Longji/Xuanzong. Gao Lishi was very corrupt: rumors suggest he had more money than the national treasury. However, he was also very loyal. Upon hearing of Li Longji/Xuanzong’s death in 762 AD, he fell ill out of grief, and died.
Others:
(These people who appeared in the drama were also taken from history, and because their roles in the drama were small, I will only list their names here. It is worth noting, however, that although their roles seemed small in the drama, they were all influential people in Tang court in 744 AD)
Gan Shoucheng (甘守诚/甘守誠)
Mao Shun (毛顺/毛順)
Jiao Sui (焦遂)
Chen Xuanli (陈玄礼/陳玄禮)
Ji Wen (吉温/吉溫)
Luo Xishi (罗希奭/羅希奭)
Wang Hong (王鉷)
Chen Xilie (陈希烈/陳希烈)
Pei Dunfu (裴敦复/裴敦復)
Wei Jian (韦坚/韋堅)
Huangfu Weiming (皇甫惟明)
Li Jingzhong (李静忠/李靜忠)/ later changed to Li Fuguo (李輔國)
If you could ask a cow if she enjoys being milked she would probably tell you yes. The milk barn is quite comfortable. There is shade and cooling fans to keep her cool. Usually, there is some music to keep her relaxed. The whole process only takes about 12 minutes. A cow will spend only 24-36 minutes a day “working.” The rest of the time she is eating, relaxing, and socializing with friends. Truly an enviable lifestyle.
Cows are creatures of habit and love the routine . If you’re late to milking they will be waiting by the gate tapping their hooves. If you’re really late they will be very annoyed. It’s uncanny that they can know the exact hour of milking time. When you open the gate, it’s a great sight seeing them all walking and moooving to the milk barn
The milking process includes washing her teats and stimulating them. By stimulating her teats before milking, it allows a hormonal release of oxytocin that encourages her to let down her milk. Oxytocin is a feel good hormone that produces antidepressant-like effects. It’s got to be a great release.
So apparently there was this dude called William Barnes who tried “purifying” english by suggesting we change the language to make its meanings more apparent (like “wordbook” for dictionary and “bendsome” for flexible)
There was also a suggestion to change ornithology to “bird lore”
why is my first thought that that’s such a georgenotfound thing to do
Herbert Spence once started reading the works of Immanuel Kant, and after finding out that the philosopher considered space and time to be forms of sense perception rather than objective things he decided that Kant was a dunce and threw the book away.
A quote from Lynn Willmott’s 2012 book, Love and Limerence: Harness the Limbicbrain, describeslimerence as ”an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object (LO) involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov to concisely point to a concept she had discovered during some of her studies in 1960s. She used it first in a book written in 1979 entitled Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love.
Limerence differs from love by being a state of unhealthy obsession, a “compulsory longing for another person,” as put by Albert Wakin at Sacred Heart University.
I was hoping to find some etymology on the word, but it looks like it was arbitrarily created by Tennov. The morphemic ending -encedenotes the word as describing a state of being, although limer-doesn’t have any historical meaning of its own.
Euouae’sclaim to fame is as the longest word in the English language which is composed entirely of vowels.
It actually came to be as a mneumonic device in medieval music. There is a portion of the Gloria Patri which is “Seculorum Amen,” and it occurs frequently in the hymn. If you notice, euouaeis the string of vowels pulled directly out of the words: SeculorumAmen.
Instead of writing out the entire phrase every time, music writers would leave euouaeunderneath the notes to indicate to the choir what they were expected to sing.
As described in A General History of the Science and Practice of Music by John Hawkins in 1853: "a word, or rather a compages of letters, that requires but little explanation, being nothing more than the vowels contained in the words Seculorum Amen; and which whenever it occurs, as it does almost in every page of the antiphonary, is meant as a direction for singing those words to the notes of the Euouae.“
I wasn’t quite intending for this post to be so involved, but I happened upon an article which said that in Welsh, you can call ladybugs buwch goch cwta, which translates to English as “little red cow,” which I think is absolutely adorable.
buwch: from the Middle Welsh buchmeaning cow, ultimately a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European root gwou-, meaning cattle
goch: a mutation of the adjective coch,from the Latin coccummeaning “scarlet, berry, dye or dyed red,” from the Ancient Greek term κόκκος kokkos, which is a “grain, seed or the color scarlet”
cwta(I’ve also seen it spelled gota), means “short or little,” and is supposedly borrowed from a Middle English term which meant “to cut down”
It turns out, though, that the name for these beetles is actually quite complicated in a lot of European based languages.
First, to look at the taxonomic family name coccinellidae.This comes from the Latin coccineusmeaning “coloured scarlet,” a term which you can also see in the Welsh, it is the same root from which we get coccumand eventually goch.There are a few other descendants of this term in nearby languages as well, like the French coccinelleand the Italian coccinella.
However, obviously, that’s not where we get the English name ladybug.In Old English, they were called lady cows (again a nod to the Welsh), in which cowwas a comment on it’s spotted wings and ladywas in reference to the Virgin Mary. The seven black dots displayed on its back were believed to have been symbolic of her seven sorrows as are described in Christian scripture.
Although English uses the more ambiguous lady, many languages have retained the Mary portion in the modern name, like Catalan marieta, Danish mariehøne(literally “Mary chicken”) and German Marienkäfer(literally “Mary beetle.”)
I have absolutely no idea what chickens have to do with anything, but good job Danish, I like it.
I’m not quite sure why, but I tend to use this wordquite frequently. I feel as though sadisn’t quite broad enough to encompass the “dispirited depression” I find in melancholy.In Old English, the word more exclusively referred to an illness associated with too much black bile in one’s body, a substance which was believed to have been secreted by the spleen.
The contemporary emotional meaning appeared in the Middle English as melancolie,a direct borrowing from the Old French, which was adopted from the Ancient Greek melankholía.This word is a compound of the two terms μέλας melas “black, dark, murky,”and χολή khole“bile.”
Interestingly, although this literal translation for the Greek is “black bile,” which we can see resurfaces in the English traditions, it was used more closely to the way we use melancholynow, as “atrabilious, gloomy.”
To circle back to a previous note, we can trace back μέλας a little further to the Proto-Indo-European root mel,meaning “to grind, hit,” but also “dark, dirty.” The other half, χολή, can be attributed to ghel, meaning “gold, flourish, pale green, shine.” Although it has this seemingly pleasant definition, it is cited as being the ancestor for many languages’ terms for “bile, gall, fury, rage, disease, etc.”
Fancy,in the adjective sense of pressed linens, champagne and marble, feels less interesting than the verb varieties: “to believe, to visualize or interpret as,” and my favorite, “to like or have a fancy.” I think the sound of fancyingsomeone is sweet, like you consider them as being of a special elegance and loveliness.
What I quite like about this word is that it is apparently a contraction of the word fantasy.Around the 15th century, it was originally spelled fantsy, specifically adopting the meanings of “whim, inclination.” Our current definitions of “fine, elegant,” appeared later.
The Middle English fantasy (also spelled fantasye), came from the Old French fantasie,from the Latin phantasia, meaning “a notion, phantasm, appearance, perception.” The root Greek was the term φαντασία phantasía,a derivative of the verb φαίνω phaínō,which is “to make visible, to bring to light, to cause to appear.” You might notice its similarities to the related word for “light,” φῶς phôs,from which we get other English words like photograph,photon, etc.
Ultimately, these are all attributed to the Proto-Indo-European root bheh-or sometimes bha-,meaning “to shine.”
“A luminous phenomenon that consists of streamers or arches of light appearing in the upper atmosphere of a planet’s magnetic polar regions and is caused by the emission of light from atoms excited by electrons accelerated along the planet’s magnetic field lines” - Merriam Webster Dictionary
I’m sure to someone with a different degree, this makes sense, but I interpret aurorato mean exclusively, “pretty northern lights.”
The English comes from the Latin word Aurora,the name of the Roman goddess of dawn. She is called the daughter of Hyperion and Euryphaessa, who assisted in bringing the sun to shine in the mornings.
The Proto-Indo-European root is au̯es-, meaning “to shine, gold, morning, etc.” Interestingly, this also birthed the Greek word Ἠώς Ēṓs,a parallel of the Latin word, and the Greek name for the same deity. From ἠώς, we have eastandEaster,both of which make sense. The dawn rises in the east, and the word Easter is a derivative of a Germanic goddess of the dawn.
The Moirai, or Fates, are the three goddesses of the Greek pantheon who determine the path of human destiny. With such a role, they are considered both goddesses of birth and of death, arriving when a person is born to assign them their fate, and again when they die to end it.
The oldest stories called them one collective power of Fate, namely Aisa:
Aisa - Αἶσα, the abstract concept of “fate,” related to the verb αἰτέω aitéō, which is “to ask, crave, demand, beg for”
However, in later accounts the three individual deities were separated, each performing a certain function, to form the trio of the Moirai:
Moirai - Μοῖρα, from the Ancient Greek μοῖρα moîra, “part, portion, destiny,” the verb form is μείρομαι meíromai, which means “to receive as your portion, to accept fate,” possibly from the Proto-Indo-European root smer-meaning alternately, “to remember, care for” and “allotment or assignment”
In Theogeny of Hesiod, they’re called both the children of Zeus and Themis, but also daughters of Nyx, the night:
“Also she [Nyx] bare the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty.”
Clotho - Κλωθώ, from the Ancient Greek verb κλώθω klótho,which is literally “to spin (as in wool or cotton), twist by spinning;” the youngest fate and the spinner of the thread of life
Lachesis - Λάχεσις, related to the Ancient Greek verb λαγχάνω lankhánō,which means “I obtain, receive by drawing lots, assigned to a post by lot,” the root for which may be the noun λάχος lákhos,“lot, destiny, fate;” the second fate, measurer of the thread of life
Atropos - Ἄτροπος, literally meaning “unchangeable,” compounds the prefix ἀ- a-(”gives it’s host the opposite of the usual definition, similar to English un-, as in wisetounwise”) and the verb τρέπω trépō,which is “I turn,” likely from the Proto-Indo-European root trep-, “to turn or bow one’s head (possibly out of shame);” the eldest fate, bearing the sharp shears which sever the threads of life, also known as “inevitable”
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I love words ending in -escence. It makes the whole thing feel ethereal and oddly immaterial.
For example, we have the word efflorescence,meaning “blooming, apt to effloresce, being in flower.” It’s borrowed in its entirety from the French, which is itself from the Latin efflorescere, “to bloom, flourish.” The Latin is a compound of the prefix ex- “out of” andflorescere “to blossom,” from the Latin noun flos, “flower.”
The Proto-Indo-European root for flosis apparently *bhel, which means “to thrive or bloom.” Interestingly, it may be a variant of another form with the same spelling meaning “to blow or swell.” Regardless, this seems to be the ancestor whence such words as flora, flourish, bloom etc, as well as Irish bláth “flower,” and Old English blowan “flower.”
Although we have the Englishcaress, I personally like the sound of the Spanishcaricia much better. It feels more intimate somehow?
The romantic root for both of these is the Italiancarezza (interestingly, the English is a layer removed, coming through the Frenchcaresse).Carezza, meaning “caress or pet” is from the Italian nouncaro, which is “dear, beloved, precious, sweetheart” or alternately, “expensive.” The -ezza is a sort of nominalizing suffix. The Latin predecessor iscarus of the same meaning.
Depending on the source, the Proto-Indo-European root is written as either-kehor-ka, “to desire or to wish.”Cherish is another sweet word from the same PIE.
Aisling is in my opinion, a beautiful word which exists in both English and its native Irish. In English (IPA: ˈæʃlɪŋ, aehsh - ling),aisling refers to a poem which includes a dramatic illustration of a dream or vision. More specifically, it refers to a form of Irish poetry which was sometimes used for political ends in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It is a direct borrowing from the Irish aisling(IPA: aʃlʲɪɲ),which more broadly translates to “dream or vision.” This comes from the old Irishformaislinge of the same definition.
Another version of the word I really like is the nounaislingeach, which is a combination of the verb form ofaisling meaning “to see in a dream or vision, and the nominal suffix -ach, which comes together to create “visionary or daydreamer.”
Although the word is spelled in many different ways (púca, pooka, pwwka, etc), I’ll look specifically at the púca form. In Irish folklore, a púca is a shapeshifting goblin which can choose it’s form as it pleases. Some of the more famous stories involve them appearing as a black horse with glowing, golden eyes. However, they might also be seen in the shape of a dog, rabbit, or perhaps an elderly man. They’re particularly mischievous creatures and are usually encountered at night.
Púca comes from the Old Irish púca, which means “goblin or sprite.” This is probably from the Old English pūca, “spirit or demon.” A proposed Proto-Germanic root is pūkô, from the Proto-Indo-European spāug-, meaning “brilliance, spectre.”
Another theory ties it to the Indo-European root beuwhich relates to “puffing, swelling.” This evolved into terms for “swelling, growths, blisters, mucus,” and from here into Old English for “demons, parasites, bugs.”
Despite being now quite archaic, there is an English cognate for púca, which ispuck, a clear derivative of the Old English.Puck is used as “a mischievous fairy or sprite;” you might recognize it also as the name of Shakespeare’s infamous A Midsummer Night’s Dreamcharacter.
It is listed in A New Universal Technical Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language by John Craig, 1854 as:
AMATORCULIST, a-ma-tor'ku-list, s. (amatorculus, Lat.) A little pitiful insignificant lover; a pretender to affection.
As stated, it’s a close borrowing from the Latindiminutive phrase amatorculus, which means literally “little lover.” A Latin Dictionary by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short adds the note, “a little, sorry lover.” It is a compound of the nounamator “lover, someone who loves,” and the suffix -culus, which creates the diminutive sense, like a familiar or pet name.
Amator is the noun actor of the verbamare, which means “to love.” Interestingly, this is actually also the word we borrowed both the French and English cognatesamateur from. Although we sometimes useamateur in English in a sort of derogatory way, the original meaning is purely taken from the Latin: “a lover of something, someone who does something for the sake of enjoyment.”
I’ve just about never been able to spell this word correctly, I always want to put ana in place of the finale. The word comes from the Middle English forms simeterie,cymytory, and cimitere, which began to be spelled with cem- around the 15th century. The words came through French from the Latin coemeterium, which originated the meaning of “burial ground for the dead.”
The Greek κοιμητήριον koimētḗrion, was more or less free of the sense of mortality and meant simply “sleeping chamber” or “dorm.” Interestingly, it derived from two verbs, κοιμάω koimáōand κεῖμαι keîmai. The first meant “to put to sleep,” while the second meant “to lie.” The morbid connotation seems to have been stronger in this second verb κεῖμαι, which had a variety of interpretations including, “to lie asleep, idle,” “to lie sick or wounded,” “to lie dead, “ and “to lie neglected or unburied.”
Before this particular linguistic thread arrived in English, though, the Old English word for burial ground was licburg, a construction using the noun lic, which meant “corpse, dead body.” They may have also used lictun, which comprised of lic “corpse” + tun “enclosure, yard.”
An adjective meaning “characterized by pleasantness, friendliness, sincerity, or comfort, reviving.” The original, but now obsolete definition was “something relating to the heart;” this has since been transferred onto the word cardiac, leavingcordial with the specifically figurative and whimsical sentiments.
Both the English cordial, and its identical French cognate come from the Latincordialis, which is itself from the Latincor, meaning “heart or soul/spirit.” The possible Proto-Indo-European root is *kerd, “heart,” from which we get many modern words like French cœur and Spanish corazón.
Another English definition forcordial is the less common noun version referring to “a liqueur or sweet tasting medicine.” This is from the 1600s, which I think makes some sense relating to its adjective form as something that revives, invigorates or comforts.
Perhaps at the moment best associated with Good Omens,ineffable is an adjective first used in the 14th century meaning “unspeakable, incapable of being expressed with words.” It comes from the Latinineffabilis, which comprises the morphemesin “not” + effort “to utter, say” + bilis “able to be or do.” The Latin was a little less grandiose in meaning, and described things which were “unutterable or unpronounceable.”
Interestingly, the Latin verbeffort which appears inineffabilis is actually a compound of the prefixex meaning “out, away, through or up,” andfor which is the word for “to say, talk, speak.”
