To be honest, the letter H was a pretty boring letter. No offense to anyone fond of the eighth letter of the English alphabet, but there weren’t many interesting words to be found. I’m about 35% of the way through the letter I and it is a similar story. It hasn’t been painful to read but it also hasn’t been very intriguing. It just is.I thought I had a good pace going through February but my required pages-read-per-day count snuck up by a fraction again. I will trudge on, doing my best to average three pages a day. Weekends tend to see four or five pages a day, which will hopefully start making up for the ground I am apparently losing.
March might feel like a successful month for me because I should finish I around mid-month. Both J and K are short sections, so it is entirely possible that I will start April on the letter L or very close to it. I’m trying to keep my goals small for now and my immediate focus is making my way to the 50% mark. That will be exciting for me. Who knows, maybe that will be the key to picking up some momentum.
Now check out my interesting words for H and I:
HALF-BAKED- This word is much older than I ever would have guessed. MW traces it back to 1621. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because, well, people were baking back then and were probably familiar with food and ideas that don’t live up to expectations.
HASSLE- This word is much younger than I would have guessed. MW traces it back to just 1945. They speculate it to come from a combination of ‘harass’ and ‘hustle.’ Probably not a bad guess but I’d love to know for sure where and how this word came to be.
HEIGH-HO- I never thought about what this term might mean while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As it turns out, heigh-ho is an expression of boredom, weariness, sadness, or encouragement. That puts the seven dwarfs in a whole new light. Were they encouraging each other about going home and weary about going to work?
HEPATITIS- I thought it was interesting that my dictionary has entries for hepatitis A and B but not hepatitis C. I checked to see if hepatitis C had been either discovered or became more widely known after my dictionary was published. It was theorized in the 1970s but discovered in 1989. My dictionary was published in 1996, so I’m not sure why it wasn’t included.
HERMETIC- This word comes to us via the name of a deity blending Greek and Egyptian gods and traditions together. His name was Hermes Trismegistus. This deity supposedly invented a magic seal that keep containers airtight. Truth (of word origins) is sometimes stranger than fiction!
HIGHFALUTIN- Now I know how to spell it in case I should ever need to use it. I don’t know that I will but thanks anyway MW!
HIGH FIVE- I was shocked- SHOCKED- I say to learn that this term is only traced back to 1980. That means it has only been around for a few years longer than I’ve been alive. Shocked, stunned, and flabbergasted. When did the act of the high five originate and what did they call it before 1980?
HIPPIE- Bring up the subject of hippies around me and you’ll get an earful. In short, they bear a large proportion of the blame for why America is so screwed up right now. MW traces the term back to 1965. Happy 50th anniversary you dirty, good-for-nothing hippie!
HONCHO- I honestly always kind of assumed this word came from Spanish. To my surprise, it is actually of Japanese origin. In its native tongue, it means squad leader and it entered the English language around 1955, making it 60 years old. My dictionary dated it to 1947 but MW online now puts it at 1955, marking the first time that I have seen MW make a word younger than what my dictionary says.
HUG- MW lists the origins of this word as probably Scandinavian. That is amusingly appropriate since Olaf from Frozen likes warm hugs and he’s a Scandinavian snowman. These are the quirky things that actually make me laugh while reading the dictionary.
HYSTERIA- The root of this word ‘hyst’ means womb. Originally, hysteria was a fit of uncontrollable laughter or emotional excitability. Since the ancient Greeks thought this condition was limited to women, they assumed it had something to do with disturbances of the uterus. Once again, truth is stranger than fiction.
ICE HOCKEY- My dictionary dated this term to 1883, which surprised me because the Stanley Cup was first awarded in 1893. MW online now dates the term back to 1868, which makes much more sense. I mean, hockey is awesome but going from an obscure sport to common usage in English and then have a trophy awarded for it in 10 years’ time seems a bit of a stretch to me.
IDIOT LIGHT- I couldn’t believe that this term is in the dictionary. I love it! I always assumed it was just a joke term that mechanics and car people used. Sure enough, it’s circulated widely enough to warrant a spot in the dictionary. Too cool.
IFF- This word means ‘if and only if.’ It was too odd to be left alone; I had to look this one up. Turns out this word is mostly used as a sort of shorthand in logic, math, and philosophy. That helps it make a little more sense. If I ever see this word used in literature, I may giggle because I don’t think it’s meant to be used outside of the aforementioned areas.
IMBECILE v. IDIOT- I was surprised to learn that these terms formerly held a level of scientific classification for the intellectual capabilities of a mentally handicapped person. They’re obviously not used anymore and are for the most part interchangeable but did you know that an imbecile used to be categorized as smarter than an idiot? An idiot had the mental capacity of a child under the age of three, whereas an imbecile had a mental capacity falling between three and seven years.
IMPASSIONED v. PASSIONATE- Now here was a very interesting usage note! You often here the term passionate bandied about in a good way but know this- it is better to be impassioned than passionate. Impassioned suggests being full of emotion and intensity of feeling. Passionate actually goes overboard and implies the use of violence or a wasteful display of emotion. So a passionate display or a passionate speech is actually something to be avoided. Try to keep that in mind.
INCOMPETENT- This word only means unsuitable for a particular position or purpose, yet it seems to be used these days as a sly way to call someone a moron. I’ve heard it on all the major news networks whether they were describing George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and any number of the members of their respective parties and administrations. Veiled insults are still insults. Use the word properly or don’t use it at all.
Page Count: 628.5/1600 (39.28%)
Countdown to the Letter J: 33.5 pages
