The Lexicographer's Rules

“After seeing him on TV, Kane, who has appeared in several films himself as a non-speaking extra, drinks a quart of peppermint schnapps, beats his wife with cat furniture, and jumps out a third story window, shattering his kneecaps and elbow.”

In an Internet full of cruddy cooking web sites overloaded with ugly advertising and ripped-off recipes, it’s refreshing to go to Elise and find a clean layout, friendly text, full credit given for recipes when they are borrowed, great pictures, and a good bunch of friendly commenters. Time and time again when googling for recipes I end up there.

I meant to post this earlier. Chris Vaughn interviewed me while I was in Oxford, England, and wrote a nice article for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram about military slang and jargon.

This is the stupidest folk etymology I’ve seen in a while:

The word “rune,” as far as I know, comes from the word “runner” where a runner would run with a rune stone four miles down the road, and then he’d give it to another runner, who’d run another four miles to another runner, who’d run another four miles to give it to the King, and the King would read the symbol on the stone and say, “Oh, there’s a wedding in three days.” So that’s how they communicated way back then.

The Oxford English Dictionary has a more reliable etymology:

In origin the same word as ROUN, mystery, etc., but in sense 1 adopted in the 17th cent. (through Danish writers on Northern antiquities) from Old Norse and Icelandic rún, pl. rúnar, later rúnir (Danish rune, pl. runer; Swedish runa, pl. runor). Hence also German and Dutch rune, pl. runen, French rune, pl. runes, etc. In sense 2 the immediate source is the Finnish runo, itself an adoption of the Old Norse word.

Roun, pointed to in the first line of the OED ety, is given this as its origins:

Common Teutonic: Old English rún str. fem., = Middle Dutch rune, ruun (ruen), whisper, secret counsel, etc., Old Swedish rûna (Middle Late German rûne, rûn), Old High German rûna (Middle High German rûne, German raun, dialect rûn), Old Norse rún, Gothic rûna.

There’s also a string of Greek that I don’t have the time to render here.

Dana, one of those people I know through the Internet (I know: it’s weird that 15 or so years into the Internet Age—I date the Internet Age from when it became a popular tool, not from when it was invented—people still think you’re weird if you have friends or lovers you met on the Internet. Get. Over. It. Ratbags.) did an email interview with me which she has posted at her weblog, Number One Hit Song.