#ilovelanguages
"The Real is accessed by language. The point of language is to keep language as an endlessly revisable process. Words don't have meanings -- they have histories, and they have futures, and they have memories."
--John Caputo
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Happy Eostre, Goddess of the Dawn, to all who celebrate!
ππ
"Easter" or "Eostre," via Middle and Old English, comes to us from the Proto-Germanic *AustrΗ, itself from the Proto-Indo-European *wΓ³srΜ₯, meaning "spring."
The goddess Eostre was celebrated with feasts.
There are so many words we still use that have barely changed over thousands of years. #TIL that "spatula" comes to English via Latin from from the Ancient Greek word ΟΟάθη -- spΓ‘thΔ -- meaning "broad wooden or metal blade." It is also the linguistic ancestor of the French word "Γ©pΓ©e" (sword).
Language is stupid amazing.
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The cat purrs.
In German:
Die Katze schnurrt.
You're welcome. ππβ€οΈ
A fly and a flea and a flue
Were in prison -- so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee!"
Said the flea, "Let us fly!"
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
TIL via Poe's story "The Man That Was Used Up" that the term "willy-nilly" comes from "will I, nill I" -- which meant "if I am willing, if I am not willingβ or βwhether I am willing or not.β
This sort of nerdery is what happens when I read the classics all will I, nill I. π
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