Courageous Comfort

Comfort. Where did this word come from? I predict Latin. Com--with, and Fort--strength.

Yet Comfort seems to have more softness than strength.

Courage comes from Latin, too. Cour--heart. So courage comes from the heart. Another syllable you wouldn't expect. Have a heart means to be sympathetic, not to be brave!

The etymology shows how people have changed. They used to think wisdom and knowledge were housed in the heart, but for hundreds of years, it moved to the Brain. Now it is moving back again. Did it move? Are we moving towards thinking more with the heart, than the brain? Eckart tolle would say it is necessary if the human race wants to survive!

Cantankerous Cacophony

I'm feeling cantankerous today. What cacophony! I's a word which is not too common, but so relevant.

Cantankerous means cranky, irritable, irascible. It is from Latin, I predict. Wait, the origin of this word is much more interesting than I thot. It comes from some alteration or mispronunciation of a Middle English word for troublemaker, which probably came from a French word for contrarian. The opposite of cantankerous is easy-going.

Cacophony means harsh disharmonious (unharmonious?) noise, as opposed to a symphony which is harmonious music. It comes from Greek, caco means bad and phone means noise.

May all you encounters today be harmonious and non-cantankerous!

Hoodlums

Someone told me there are too many hoodlums at the school near my house.

Hoodlum?

What a strange word. It means a young troublemaker; a thug; ruffian; or a violent and rough youth.

But where did it come from? Wiktionary tells me German, from huddlellump. I tend to think that it has something to do with gangsters and robbers wearing "hoods." It became common usage in San Francisco around 1933.

Scrumptious words

Scrumptious?

That is a weird word. It looks weird and sounds weird, too. I had to look it up to make sure it was spelled correctly.

My dictionary explains that this word is probably a variant of sumptuous.

Scrumptious means delightful or delectable.

Sumptuous means luxurious, lavish, costly and magnificent, and comes from the Latin word for expensive.

Both are uncommon words. You don't hear them every day. So get out there and spread the word!

Sinister cynicism

Cynicism has that almost sinister (catch the sound alike?) sound....

I think sinister is from Latin, and cynicism is from Greek. It may have traveled thru Latin, though. The Roman empire took a lot of mythology and philosophy from Greek, and tried to make it their own.

Sinister means evil or ominous, and came thru Middle English from Old French, from Latin.
Cynical means suspicious or thinking all men are motivated by selfishness, which came thru Latin from Greek, of course. I copied that defination from the dictionary, so please don't accuse me of being sexist.

Thanks to Kevin Hogan for the idea for this article. I read Kevin Hogan's newsletter (Coffee) and articles every week. I think they are brilliant.

You can find some brilliant books here:

Regurgitate

Seems like I've been gone a long time. I did get to check my email in an Internet Cafe in Cyprus twice in the past 3 weeks.

I actually regurgitated on the way home on the plane during landing. Thank goodness, they still have airsickness bags on the planes. An odd thing to provide for every flyer, since I doubt they are used very often. I guess it used to be common when air travel was new and novel to the general public and many people experienced fear and anxiety. But now we know how safe air travel is compared to other modes of transportation. And if logic doesn't influence the emotional response, hypnosis can be used to reduce anxiety and eliminate fear of flying.

Re gur gi tate-- repeat, throw back, throw up. Re means again, I think gurgi must be Latin. Yes! Gurgitare means to engulf, and gurgit- means whirlpool.

Spurious Potentate

Some words from To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my all-time favorite books:

Potentate, which means one who has the power or position to rule over others, monach, or one who dominates or leads any group or industry. From Middle English, from late Latin, from potent (power).

Spurious, which means counterfeit, fake, phony, or illegimate. From Latin, perhaps from Etruscan, spurcus (impure). Etruscan! Who were the Etruscans? More later…