For Moxie. L

"New York is old. New York has snow-on-the-ground-yet-sunny-and-clear days. New York has deciduous trees. New York has diners that serve egg creams and adorable little Italian restaurants run by people who can properly pronounce the names of dishes on their menus. New York has public parks with pop-up ice rinks and carousels that might have a red horse. New York has the wonderful habit of converting old train trestles into scenic walkways. New York has brownstones with wrought-iron railings and half-hidden carvings. New York is New York. But New York is not Oregon, so I'm fine with going home." -Moxie

"Dreamt is possibly the strangest word in the English language," writes Moxie. "Yes, there's limn and cathexis and ersatz, but one could conceivable say dreamt in normal conversation. It's weird because it ends in -mt. How many words, let alone verbs, do that?" Moxie stares up at the ceiling, trying to remember. The effort is futile. She gives up and continues pontificating. "Dreamt. Dreamt. Dreamt. If you repeat it enough times, it eventually becomes meaningless, which is called jamais vu. The opposite of deja vu, which means already seen in French, jamais vu means never seen. Anyways," continues Moxie, "my point is...my point is..." She trails off, looking back up at the ceiling in hopes her point is written up there. The ceiling, the light brown of a cafe au lait, has a distinct lack of words on it. It is doubtful she had a point in the first place, but makes a desperate attempt at one. "My point is that you should say dreamt instead of dreamed. Something like that."

Moxie says, "Halloween is tomorrow, and if you're of a curious disposition, you may wonder why in the name of God we celebrate a holiday that seems to be an excuse to eat candy that comes from strangers and may or may not have razor blades in it. Well, it's really in the name of God that Halloween was originally created. Samhain was the ancient Celtic harvest festival, but when the Catholic church came to the British Isles, they were like, 'No, you heathens, you may no longer celebrate your pagan holidays. Instead, you can celebrate All Saints' Day and Christmas and Easter!'. All Saints' Day was November first (originally March thirteenth) and All Souls' Day was November second. All Souls' Day was a day to pray for the souls of the deceased. People would go house to house, offering to pray for the souls of dead family members in exchange for food, specifically soull cakes, which sound delicious but I doubt that I'd be capable of baking them. Going a-souling, as it was called, is the likely origin of trick-or-treating. The name Halloween comes from a series of contractions: the eve of All Souls' Day was All Hallows' Eve, then Hallows' Eve, then Hallow'e'e[n]...I guess? Man, that looks weird written down. We carve pumpkins for Halloween because the Irish would carve turnips into lanterns (there's some story there). Then, with the mass emigration of the Irish to the New World, they discovered pumpkins. Far better than turnips. And then! and then there is a lapse in my historical knowledge. Go check out howstuffworks.com."

So, since I'm not delirious with sickness or sleep deprivation, I have a good chance of sounding like the sanest one here.

An unusual situation.

I guess I need to talk about something interesting now. The title of this post is "Words are Messy," which I wrote because it sounds good, but for lack of a better topic, let me talk about English.

Exciting, right? But since you're presumably reading this in English, I'll give you a brief background as I understand it (a disclaimer, as my understanding is flawed).

English is an amalgation of countless Germanic and Romantic languages that somehow all found their way, whether through conquest or trade, to the British Isles, where they mingled with native tongues. French was actually used by the upper classes and for anything offical for a while in England. A while is about three hundred years; the Norman Invasion led by William the Conqueror in 1066 brought French, and the Black Death from 1347 to 1349 killed off most of the French speakers (be impressed, because those dates were off the top of my head). If you've ever been confused over why cow meat is called beef and pig meat is called pork and sheep meet is called mutton, well, blame the French. Of course, French isn't the only language that greatly impacted English, but it's the one I know the most about, and I'm too lazy to research. But anyway. Conquest and trade: as a result, English is a crazy, wonderful mish-mosh of exceptions. (In case you were wondering, "mish-mosh," or "mish-mash," comes from Yiddish.)

Hopefully that was succinct enough.

~ Moxie