today I learned that there's a regional drink here called a Purple Jesus made out of everclear and grape juice.
TIL ash trees are named for their use as spear-hafts (from æsc) rather than being good at burning. My life is a lie and false cognates are silly.
@Loq Not something I learned anywhere near today, but I love the French term for false cognates - "faux amis." It describes the sense of betrayal one experiences with a false cognate very well.
TIL some guys who like guys call themselves "Achillean" and I can't decide if the sense of grandeur the term lends me by association is appealing or just silly.
TIL that the stereotypical wolf pack structure isn't just based on 40+ year old research done on captive wolves without any prior relationships, enough resources, or enough enrichment...but the original experiment apparently was done by someone who worked for Hitler and had a resulting massive amount of pressure to try to describe the behaviors in ways that supported the nazi ideology. http://why-animals-do-the-thing.tum...n-one-of-your-posts-you-said-that-wolves-dont So in other words, Nazis are responsible for the "alpha male/alpha wolf' thing.
It kinna fucks with me because Akhillean already had a meaning, it means wrathful or even wrathful beyond sense and into folly, sometimes so full of any emotion and bad at controlling it that you get yourself into trouble with it. Like Akhilles, who was always furious and always fucking up his life with it (and the whole Myceniaen war effort while he was at it.) Not that that daunts me. Part of the point of the word 'Sapphic' is it pulls up a history of queer women, specifically in the ancient culture the modern West reveres, implying being a queer woman is an ancient goddamn tradition. Akhillean does the same thing, it just also implies personal mental imbalance and the willingness to murder the fool who fucks your man up. Which just makes it a better word but I do wonder how many people know it already is one. *specific transliterations of ancient Greek words are used in this post because it makes me happy. I am still talking about Achilles.
I am now sad that "sapphic" does not have connotations of willingness to murder anyone who hurts your woman.
To me at least, Sapphic has a connotation of... shamelessness? Bravado? Pride? Her Hymn to Aphrodite strongly implies that this isn't her first time asking the goddess for help wooing a woman. In my headcanon she had many girlfriends and a sense that she was very worthy of all the attention she got :3
I have a mad love for words and their origins, especially when there's a good story behind how a word developed. Weeaboo is temporarily my favorite word.
I try not to answer the question 'what's your favorite word' because a. I'm a hobby etymologist, answering that question is impossible and b. what comes to mind is a favorite word root, not a favorite word. That would be lumin, Latin word root referring to light, seen in words like illuminate, luminous, luminiferous. Damn, look at those words. There's a level of a geek a person gets to be where you shouldn't ask them about their favorite subjects because actually, it's really exasperating.
That's why whenever anyone asks me what my favourite book is I stare blankly for a bit and then finally have to ask them to narrow it down, because really, how am I supposed to pick? (Although one of my professors had a massive massive Indo-European etymology book that would probably make my top 10... well, top 10 nonfiction, for sure...)
I have a favorite mathematical theorem. I used to have a different favorite theorem, but then I thought about it for a long time and decided I liked this one better. On some level I'm convinced that they're really the same theorem, or maybe two manifestations of some meta-theorem.
