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Messages - Lord J Esq

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16
General Discussion / Re: Banner and/or Wallpaper Help?
« on: July 03, 2018, 05:20:42 pm »
I've used the GIMP, but I've heard good things about Paint.Net too.

Same but opposite! I've heard good things about GIMP, though I use Paint.NET.

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Hah, yeah! Having seen a horse pee, in person, I can attest that it's...impressive.

Z, I'd swear I've heard a phrase very similar to "revolving trainwreck," but not quite exactly that. I did some cursory The Googles, but no luck. My favorite phrase site, https://www.phrases.org.uk/, also had no results.

Mauron, I thought of another one this morning: lousy! That's a great example of a word evolving to take on its own shape and creating etymological variety.

18
Well said, xcalibur!


I occasionally look up phrases. It's interesting how we have no idea what we're saying sometimes.

Strewth!

I find it so fascinating how there comes a certain point (more of a diffuse zone, really), where a word stops being a literal reference to something else and takes on its own shape. That's the split that allows etymology to be so incredibly fascinating.


Today, on my "On This Day" page on Facebook, there came a little puzzle. Which of these doesn't belong?

Consent
Dissent
Resent
Present
Assent

While there are a number of legitimate answers, the answer I was looking for is that "present" comes from a different etymology. The others all use "sent" to mean "feel," as in "sentient." The "sent" in "present" derives from the verb meaning "to be."

<3

19
I'm super glad to hear things are going better at home!

Too bad you can't make it to the concert in person. You need Cannon Travel, from The Secret of Mana.

20
General Discussion / Re: Photo Thread!!
« on: July 02, 2018, 11:07:53 pm »
Hah! That is totally Lucca hair. All purple hair is awesome hair.

21
General Discussion / Re: Banner and/or Wallpaper Help?
« on: July 02, 2018, 11:07:02 pm »
You are welcome, Nadia! And no sweat, Boo.

As for buying graphics editing software, I use Paint.NET and it's totally free. I actually like it very well. I'm not a professional graphic designer in that I sell designs to others, but I do my own graphic design work for my various projects and personal larks and Paint.NET has been plenty powerful enough to handle my editing needs over the years.

22
 :!:

Etymology, the study of the origin of words and the history of their meaning, is my favorite hobby. In the course of reading, writing, or just going about my daily business, I often find myself coming across a word that I'd like to look up. I love looking up words, even ones I know. There is such clarity simply in reviewing definitions. Dictionary.com and Wiktionary, together, are an outstanding resource that between them (plus the occasional Urban Dictionary visit for new slang) cover basically everything in English, and cover it well.

But there's more to words than just their definitions, and oftentimes I find even greater insight by looking at their etymologies. Dictionaries list this information too. Etymology not only clarifies words for me; it often sheds light on entire subjects.

For instance, the etymological root of the word happiness means "luck." In contrast, the word gladness has its roots in the concept of "smooth," and, even farther back, "shine." So, once upon a time, one who had encountered favor and good fortune might be called "happy." And "glad" might be said of someone positively shining with good emotion. Today we use these two words as synonyms (and there's nothing wrong with that), but, once upon a time, they referred to distinct ideas.

How about the word mana? That stuff we use to cast magic spells in video games. Where does that come from? In fact it's a very new addition to English, having come into usage via academia in the 20th century, where it was soon taken up in fantasy. But originally it comes from Polynesia:

Quote
Mana is a foundation of the Polynesian worldview, a spiritual quality with a supernatural origin and a sacred, impersonal force. To have mana implies influence, authority, and efficacy—the ability to perform in a given situation. The quality of mana is not limited to individuals: Peoples, governments, places and inanimate objects may also possess mana, and its possessors are accorded respect.

When I discovered this, just a few months ago actually, it was like digging up buried treasure. It was an incredibly exciting find! In fantasy, mana is rather degenerate: It's just a green bar that lets you cast certain spells. It doesn't mean anything. Occasionally there's some hand-wavy line about "the energy of the planet" or "the favor of the gods," but really it means nothing. So if you're someone who likes digging a little deeper, imagine how fascinating it can be to start connecting the idea of spellcasting to the idea of efficacy and influence. When you stop and think about what magic actually is, a discovery like this is pay dirt!

We even got a taste of the power of etymology in Chrono Trigger:

Quote
Ayla's word. "La" mean fire. "Vos" mean big.

Now, there's nothing particularly sophisticated about that, the way mana originally referred to a highly developed concept. But this is the deepest explanation we get of Lavos until near the end of the game, and there's a certain profundity to its simplicity.

Some people don't get it. There's even a GameFAQs thread of people being angry at Ayla for making up such a "dumb" name. And that's okay. Etymological insight isn't mandatory. You don't need to know the full family history of a word to get the gist of it, or to use it in daily conversation. And, if you don't understand what you're really seeing, there's no value in looking at "happy" and knowing that it once meant "lucky."

For me, however, it's deeply enlightening to understand we came to use a word the way we use it here in the present day. If I asked you to think of the meaning of the word city, you'd probably imagine an assemblage of buildings and bustle. Ironically, the original meaning was almost opposite to that: It ultimately comes from a proto-Indoeuropean root kei, meaning, as a verb, "to lie" or "to rest," and, as a noun, "bed" or "couch." So the earliest concept of a city was that of a homestead or a resting place.

This brings us to one of my favorite subtopics in etymology: cognates. Cognates are etymological cousins: They may have very different meanings, but they share the same root. For instance, happiness is a cognate of hapless (which better retains the original meaning). Glad counts among its cognates the word glass, which very much fits the descriptions of "smooth" and "shine." And city has, for one of its many cognates, the word cemetery. A different kind of resting place!

Cognates aren't just about shining light on a given word by contrasting it with another word whose contemporary meaning is closer to the etymological root. They also of course don't come only in pairs. I like to think of them as insights into themselves and each other, and to the etymological roots bearing them. They can be fascinating, like pray and precarious, both with a root meaning "made by entreaty." And cognates can be incredibly amusing, like peace and pectin (the gelatin), with a root referring to the idea of binding and holding fast.

You don't have to look very far to find cognates. Most words have several cognates in English alone, let alone in other languages. They're one of the great bonuses of etymological research.

Getting back to etymology, I'll close by saying that etymologies are diverse, and endlessly fascinating.

Some etymologies are very rich and fruitful, with many words always changing. (Change isn't one of them; its etymology has been the same throughout its known history, coming from a root kambos meaning the same thing.)

Some etymologies are infuriating, like harem, whose root means "to bar the door."

Some etymologies are hilarious, like preposterous, which means "pulled out of one's ass."

Some etymologies are not especially straightforward, like noon. It comes from nones, which originally meant “nine,” as in the ninth hour of the day. But that’s according to the seven canonical hours, of which nones was fifth. In modern time, that’s three o’clock in the afternoon. In other words, 12 used to be 9 in that it was 5 out of 7, which was actually 3.

Some etymologies are judgmental. The word muse comes from a root meaning "snout," as in "to stand with one's nose turned up in the air" (i.e., wasting time by pondering). It's a cognate to muzzle and possibly to nose.

Some etymologies are uncertain. The root of religious is a very old one and a definitive etymology is uncertain, but the modern consensus is that it is cognate to words such as ligament, with the original meaning being “to tie down” or “fasten” in the sense of obligating humans to the authority of the gods. Yet, we don't know for sure.

And some etymologies are completely unknown, lost to history.


23
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: CHRONO COMIX
« on: June 30, 2018, 04:09:12 am »

24
General Discussion / Re: Banner and/or Wallpaper Help?
« on: June 30, 2018, 03:39:27 am »
I am sorry this took me so long! I did a bunch of graphic design work for a client's social media this week, and it reminded me of this. I've made composites of your photos to go on your computer desktop, Facebook, and Twitter. I did some very light blurring at the image seams to make it less jarring to see the photos together, and I did some moderate color correction to emphasize that it's two different images. I've also included the raw composite so that you can do your own editing if you'd like. The important thing is that you get those dimensions to the same size I set them at. (Social media networks are always changing this, but it'll work at least for now!)

25
I am chuffed that they hit their goal!!

And so glad that you're going, Nadia!

Thank you so much for posting it! I wouldn't have known about it if it wasn't for you! I'm sooo excited to go!

Are you English perchance? English people are the only people I have ever heard use the word "chuffed" so now I'm curious. Ha ha!

Hah! 'Fraid not. I am West Coast USA: grew up in Southern California, then mostly lived in Washington State, with a five-year stint in the mountains of Texas.

I do, however, have a cosmopolitan vocabulary! You should have seen it when I was a teenager. I was just as ambitious in my diction as I am now, but while I knew a lot of words I didn't yet have the mastery to really pull it off, so my sentences were sometimes pretty ridiculous:

J: Have you mayhap apprehended what flagitious perfidy now agglomerates herein?!
Friend: What...?!!
J: It is as was foretold; forsooth we are witness to the promulgation by feckless wastrels of the mendacity of appetance, quod erat demonstrandum!

Today, my vocabulary is actually even bigger, but, A) I can actually use it all correctly; and, B) I've learned that expressiveness usually requires methods other than precision. =P

"Chuffed" is a fun one because some folks I read (all British of course) used it, and it's just a fun word. Plus its literal meaning is "swollen with fat" and that makes my inner fat acceptance activist smile, since we don't have many fat-positive expressions.

All of which makes me think...I ought to start a thread on my favorite hobby: etymology!

I hope you're still able to go to the concert despite troubles at home, and I hope it brings you a few hours of genuine delight!

26
General Discussion / Re: Deleting Spam Like...
« on: June 30, 2018, 02:19:06 am »
I mean, I am 110% sure I've seen some Chrono hentai floating around here in years past.

For whatever reason that reminds me of Cutelucca's doujinshi. I guess because it was raunchy and I was still young enough at the time to be really impressed and intrigued that someone was doing art of, a game I loved, that was raunchy without being straight up porn.

27
Welcome / Birthday / Seeya! Forum / Re: Goodbye...
« on: June 30, 2018, 02:17:28 am »
Good golly that's a sad story. Lots of suffering in the Compendium community this month. We all need to get together at the Snail Stop for a hot cider and just vent.

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General Discussion / Re: Go ahead and take a look.
« on: June 30, 2018, 02:16:07 am »
Wow! That is legit cool art.

29
General Discussion / Re: I Wanted to Let You Guys Know...
« on: June 30, 2018, 02:14:44 am »
I've been away from the Compendium for a few weeks, so I missed this, but I just wanted to say that I'm wishing you the best. One way or another the Compendium will be here for ya, mate, oi!

30
I am chuffed that they hit their goal!!

And so glad that you're going, Nadia!

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