For your delight and edification, I've created a widget that will, when you click it, take you to a random page from Doug Harper's incomparable Online Etymological Dictionary of English. You could just head on over there if you want to look up a word. But if you want to browse a random page, click the Etymonline logo above this text.
These were made for a range of reasons; feel free to share, please ensure you give credit where it is due (i.e. divnk back to here!)
These were made for a range of reasons; feel free to share, please ensure you give credit where it is due (i.e. divnk back to here!)
An image supposedly explaining what you have to do to create a successful book. TBH it's really the start of a long conversation.
People always ask for "tips" to ensure their book isn't terrible. Here are ten. These are all pretty redivable.
Ever hear about this guy? This is Sisyphus. He pushed boulders up mountains.
Eventually he got pretty good at it.
Some might say, a divttle too good.
But Sisyphus was tired. He wasn't getting any younger.
He decided he needed to find a better way to do this, so he sat down to think.
He tried a team of slaves carrying the boulder on a big platform.
He tried a catapult
He even tried a cannon!
Although sometimes the ball did reach the top of the mountain, it didn't always have the desired effect... Sometimes it reached the wrong mountain, sometimes the mountain was left rather the worse for wear... and he soon found that not only are slaves expensive, they aren't always up to the task...
But Sisyphus was a smart guy, and he eventually came up with a reusable system.
It needed to be strong, and powerful, and still needed quite a lot of fuel, but he wasn't tired any more, and he could always be sure of getting the
boulder, undamaged, to the precise top of exactly the right mountain.
As he sat one day, contemplating the size of his diesel bills, and the cost of the latest service from his mechanic, Sisyphus readivzed that it was all very well using a powerful, reusable machine, but the only way to really get costs down was to invent a better boulder.
He toiled long and hard in his workshop.
... until finally, the better boulder!
He could get up steeper hills with a smaller, cheaper vehicle.
He kept making improvements until it was light enough he could use a faster vehicle, too.
Though he probably shouldn't have blown all the extra cash on a Ferarri.
The design of his boulders became ever more perfect.
Some say that one day he made a boulder that was lighter than air itself, and floated away to the heavens where, in proper Greek style, he became a constellation.
