Miscellany

Don't hate me, my life is full, rewarding, and frequently NSFB (Not Safe For Blogging).

Speaking of 4-letter acronyms beginning with N... any old-school Dexter's Lab fans out there?  Yeah, you know who you are.  Enjoy the infamous Star Trek parody.  "NRFB!"

In Word News:
~After consulting the Online Etymology Dictionary, I've determined the difference between prescribe/prescriptive and proscribe/proscriptive.  The first means to mandate, the second to forbid.  Interestingly, both have the same root meaning of "to write down, publish, legislate" -- but now one means to make mandatory, and the other to make abstinance mandatory.  More interesting: these are Latin roots; their Germanic equivalent bannire has a similar history -- wedding banns were published announcements of intent to marry, wheras to ban something is to forbid it, and a bandit is someone who's been published against.  But they all essentially mean "to write down (publicly)"

Ahh, words.

~OED added some new words to its lexicography, as it does every year.  Among the new additions:
hikikomori -- loan word from Japanese, describing a withdrawal from society, as well as someone who's made this withdrawal.

fussbudget -- surprised this one was a new addition.  Just like it sounds; a fussy, complaining person

Then there are the words I have problems with:
hater -- okay, I know this is an important part of contemporary slang, but doesn't it really just mean "one who hates"?
The portmanteaus: bromance, automagically, freemium. chillax, turducken -- with the possible exceptions of turducken and bromance, I'm pretty sure these are all ridiculous, unnecessary, redundant (how, precisely, is chillax any different in meaning from chill or relax?) and not only Not Real Words, but not even used as real words.  Heavy sigh.

Finally: Regarding Really Cool Places

There's a site called Ani located somewhere between Armenia and Turkey (no one's sure who it really belongs to, because Armenia and Turkey) known as the City of 1001 Churches -- all of them falling into ruin and dripping with history.  There's something haunting and sad and somehow very important about all these beautiful buildings sitting alone on a plain, meant to be enjoyed and inhabited, but instead invaded by silence.  Someday I would like to go there.

Here are some pictures.

Hope everyone enjoys Holy Week and has a lovely Easter.  Call your mom!  She loves you!

"Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia" -- "Yep."