Freaky

I was working on my curriculum vitae and suddenly it started displaying Hebrew when I typed. It was a little freaky. I forgot that I had both Hebrew and Spanish keyboards installed in addition to US English, mainly because I was doing both in Duolingo. Haven't worked on the Hebrew in a while, so I didn't even remember having it.

I do love Latin, but this is funny...

Although keep in mind it's Eddie Izzard and so be prepared for some vulgarity (and not of the Vulgar Latin variety). :)s

Well, I did know one

Any pagan worth their salt knows 'widdershins'. But still...I love archaic words (as you can no doubt tell). I must start using these right away. Here in Kentucky, 'swullocking' is especially appropriate, although oddly enough, it's not to bad right now.

19 AMAZING ENGLISH WORDS WE’VE TOTALLY FORGOTTEN ABOUT

Amusing

I received a letter from my health insurance company, UnitedHealthcare, requesting I call them about getting into their diabetes programme to help me 'reach my health goals'. The funny thing was that when I opened up the letter, it was in Spanish--not my first language, and not one I am by any means fluent in, but surprisingly, I got the gist of the letter, and I haven't had Spanish since 9th grade. I didn't know every word, but I understood about 80% of them. It was only after I turned the letter over that I discovered it was in English on that side. :)

One more thing...

Given the loss of indigenous languages to English, and the heavy borrowing that is sometimes the only remnant of those languages, I can't really argue with this:

A dead man fell from the sky...: The grammar thug
'English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.'

Thanks to a fellow language geek

(Bill) for sharing:

Surfacing

I just woke up after sleeping five straight hours in the afternoon, so I could get some ibuprofen and eat something. With being sick I had sadly gotten off my meds, and so I was sick, tired, getting somewhat depressed and labile, and my blood sugar was 332. Now it's about 100 points down from that and I feel better, just really tired and stuffy, with a headache, sore eyes, and a nose sore from blowing.

I should stay up for awhile, watch something or maybe read some more of the book I've been reading, Alex Ford's The Friend Request (which every user of Facebook should read, although it's only on eReaders like the Kindle and Nook for now). It's about a man who worms his way into a classmate's past to try to destroy his life, using Facebook to gather information about him and the people around him. It amazes me how many stupid people (well, in this case, I'm afraid it's stupid Americans) rate the book poorly on grammar because they haven't any idea of this thing called British English, that it exists, that Americans are the ones who changed their spelling, and that the spellings in Britain are also used in, oh, the entire rest of the world. And the sad thing is they have no idea they're being the 'Ugly American' and stupid to boot.

Thing is, when I'm sick, I don't really feel like doing much of anything. I can maybe watch something; that's passive. And I read on the bus to pass time. But generally I want to just curl up in bed and rest as much as possible. That's what I'm doing today, in the hopes of being better tomorrow.

Okay, I've reached my limit of writing for now. I think I'll go back to bed for awhile. The computer screen is hurting my eyes.

You could help solve a mediaeval mystery

This is 15th Century English, but what does it say?


Do you like puzzles? Challenges? Then you may want to try your hand at this inscription. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Salisbury Cathedral is asking medievalists for help in deciphering a mysterious inscription hidden behind a monument for hundreds of years.

The inscription, painted in black gothic letters, is thought to be one of the earliest written in English in any church in Britain, but it is so faded that it is unreadable.

The letters were painted on a thin layer of limewash that was partially scraped off before the monument to Sir Henry Hyde, a Royalist martyr executed during the Civil War, was erected in the early 1660s. In places, all that is left is a dark stain on the stonework where the paint leached through.

Interested in mediaeval English cooking?

Check out The Forme of Cury, A Roll of Ancient English Cookery. It was compiled about 1390 CE by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II, and presented afterwards to Queen Elizabeth I by Edward Lord Stafford. It was later published by Samuel Pegge in 1791, and his name became associated with it.

You can also access the Forme of Cury at the Project Gutenberg site, including downloading zipped files of the text for reading offline.

I actually found this looking up information about hedgehogs after watching some cute videos of them which popped up as related to the cat videos below. There's a recipe for hedgehog sausages in the collection.

Weeding words

Speaking of the English language, the following words are being purged from Britain's Collins English Dictionary as archaic and obsolete to make room for new entries. I figure as long as they're in the OED, they're still official. And as you've no doubt noticed, I have a penchant for archaic words and spellings anyway. :)

Abstergent, Agrestic, Apodeictic, Caducity, Caliginosity, Compossible, Embrangle, Exuviate, Fatidical, Fubsy, Griseous, Malison, Mansuetude, Muliebrity, Niddering, Nitid, Olid, Oppugnant, Periapt, Recrement, Roborant, Skirr. Vaticinate, and Vilipend

For lots of 'obscure' words, try Luciferous Logolepsy, a great site devoted to them.