etymology
etymology / noun. late middle english.
1. an account of, or the facts relating to, the formation or development of a word and its meaning; the process of tracing the history of a word. late middle english. b. the original meaning of a word as shown by its etymology.
2. the branch of grammar that deals with the way individual words are inflected. archaic.
3. the branch of linguistics that deals with the etymologies of words.
from the shorter oxford english dictionary, fifth edition
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this is an experiment in linguistics (and fiction, for the sake of clarification). for some incredibly odd members of society, words and their origins, meanings and corruptions hold an enduring fascination. i happen to be one of those odd people. the love of adventure through language runs in my family and it is not unusual for us to embark on a 30-minute expedition through six or more dictionaries or other word references on our quest to track a problematic part of speech to its earliest form.
i don’t yet have a plan for where this will go, if it goes anywhere. i have inklings of ideas i’d like to explore through the lens of language. at the moment, my general method of attack is to plan a plot around a single word or concept.
ridiculous? eccentric? over-reaching? boring?
well, maybe. or maybe you’ll find your own adventures in language.
installments are listed earliest to most recent.
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word suggestions, with the exception of profanity or other crudity, gladly accepted.
