Tuesday, September 4, 2012

WORD ORIGINS OF THE DAY . . . NERD STYLE

How much of a geek (or nerd if you prefer) can I be?  Who else thinks learning new words cool?  I mean seriously cool to the point it makes your day.  I'm figuring not many.  Well, it makes my day.

Can anyone guess what ENCHIRIDION means?  No cheating.  This word inspired a sequel to Nekropolis.  Yep.  It inspired a whole novel storyline.  

And now you know how much of a nerd I am.  I totally geek out and have to share my random findings.  Torture, isn't it?

Do you know anyone else that has an obsession with the OED or even know what the OED stands for? And let me not go into how I o.d. on searching for word origins, hence the obsession with OED.  

Did you know that doom and doomsday wasn't a bad thing way back when?   It meant census once.  so the doomsday book (aka doom's day book)  was the census book that recorded people's names and stuff.  Interesting, huh?

OOOOO!  Did you know that thing (yes, thing) came from the Norse?  The All Thing was a gathering of the Viking clans, and they set up contracts and marriages and all sorts of things.  We also have to thank the pantheon of Norse Gods for a lot of the days of the week.  Tuesday = Tyr, Wednesday = Odin, Thursday = Thor, and Friday = Frigg.  

Of course the Romans had a lot of influence too.  January = Janus, God of Beginnings and Endings.  Apropos, huh?  I could go on, but I can hear the screams of terror.  =D

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