Mourning.

I'm undergoing a pretty big change right now--the reasons I had for being where I am are being taken away. Perhaps that's too cruel--maybe those reasons weren't particularly hardy to begin with, say--but right now I do feel somewhat adrift.

Still writing, though. And my binoculars came, though I haven't had much time to use them of late.

Everyone's warm regards have been incredibly helpful.

Cheers.

There have been...issues with internet access.

Nevertheless, I am fascinated with Nick's new project. I do adore the pokings-around in natural places sprouting up in otherwise built-up locations. I just like knowing my surroundings in a more complete way--schematic maps and road maps are just so incomplete.

Also, I'm a fan of birding, and will be able to do more of that once my binoculars arrive from Kansas.

Alternate-day posting comes to a near-crashing halt.

Closing Friday, opening Saturday, loads of biking and bike-tricking-out...and I am beat.

Today I wrote nothing. But I did swap a bike chain out on my lunch break.

I love the internet.

Stalactites and stalagmites? Oh, that's so yesterday. Seriously, it's nice to see other people interested in the same random thing, even if no one seems to know why there's a difference. Merriam-Webster tells me the words date back to New Latin in the 1660s or 1670s, and so they were probably coined for someone's science research...but my inclination to look wanes beyond that.

Which is a good thing, really, since I've been distracted by sketch comedy.

Icicles

Been tinkering with the old and tinkering with the new, and came across the odd fact that Czech apparently has two words for icicle, neither of which is etymologically related to the word for ice. There's one from a word possibly meaning "drip" or "flow," and another related to the word "roof."

That got me thinking about the English word icicle, which seemed odder to me the more I looked at it. -icle is familiar to me as a Latinate diminuitive suffix (test-, veh-, etc.) but ice isn't a Latinate word, it's Germanic.

Turns out, according to Merriam-Webster, that the -icle part comes from Middle English ikel from Old English gicel, meaning icicle; cognate to a German ihilla with the same meaning that's no longer extant in Modern German, which has, if I'm not mistaken, Eiszapf "ice-spike."

So somehow English ended up with a Latin-seeming but very Germanic word for icicle that means "ice-icicle." Presumably the -ikel lost some of the semantics of icicle itself and was strengthened by the first "ice." I suppose I would guess that it was due to interference from the Latin suffix that confused me.

Next post: how did stalactite and stalagmite end up with their roof-floor differentiations in meaning, since they're from the same damn Greek verb?

Another Godforsaken Translation Update

I've scrabbled my way through another three thousand transcribed words of Mr. Mundstock. Twenty more handwritten pages to go--both sides--maybe twelve thousand words in total.

I've reformatted a whole load of fables (why didn't I do it properly to begin with? I must love three-key commands to center and right-justify) and edited maybe half the understories. (I still hate that decision, though I do like the way these stories are coming together. Undertales? Sub-stories? Fairy tale-lets?)

I'm drawing up plans for Almanac, and poking around with a bit of handwritten translation there, while resisting the urge to get bogged down in planning my own Hipster PDA.

This [title] is not true [for me the day I posted it. It is a good read, however.

Progress?

Progress. The rust is coming off the wheels. I'm editing Capek fables, transcribing Fuks' Mundstock, and drawing up crazy plans for a calendar-cycle collection of Capek's for 2009. And then another for 2010. Maybe.

I can't be thinking about soup right now.

STATUS REPORT:

Fuks:

Burner of Corpses. Farthest along. Revised multiple times. Still needs work. The self-indulgent footnotes could go too. (Anyone ever get through this thing?)
Mr. Theodor Mundstock. Version one handwritten. Probably four-sevenths typed up.
The Way to the Promised Land. Transcribed. No thorough editing.
My Black-Haired Brothers. Transcribed. At least one major overhaul. Haven't touched it otherwise since December of '06.
Death of a Guinea Pig. Oh right now I'm not even sure.


Čapek:

Fables and Undertales: version 1 online. Editing proceeding sporadically.
Almanac Faint scribblings. Perhaps a next project? A premature assessment. Why would I even think of a new project right now?