I'm MELTING!!! IWSG, Origins, LoanWords, Being Thankful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ8WrKnLUs

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts: Kate Larkinsdale, Diane Burton, and Shannon Lawrence!

This month's question is: Have you ever written something that afterwards you felt conflicted about? If so, did you let it stay how it was, take it out, or rewrite it?

Conflicted in what way? Subject matter? How it was written? The answer for me is, can't say that I have. 

***

Origins: a recurring post in which I delve into the history of a word or phrase.

Today's word is: Melt

It's August. It's hot. What better word to explore than something heat does to ice cream (which itself has a long history.)

Melt has an old and prestigious pedigree. It comes down to us from the Middle English word melten, which comes from the Old English meltan, meaning to "become liquid through heat". They are in turn from the Proto-Germanic words meltanan and gamaltijan. If that weren't old enough, those two Proto-Germanic words can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European word meldh - also the source of the the Sanskrit word, mrduh, meaning "soft, mild" - AND the Greek meldein, "to melt, make liquid" AND the Latin mollis, "soft, mild", both of which come from the Proto-Indo-European root mel, meaning "soft." Got all that? 

Proto-Indo-European is hypothesized to have been spoken between 4500 BC and 2500 BC, which is late Neolithic to early Bronze Age. That's approximately 6500 to 4500 years ago.

So, when the Wicked Witch of the West cried out, "I'm melting!" maybe it was August.

Then there's this great hot summer song from the Lovin' Spoonful.

Lastly 50 years ago, on August 28th, 1963  (the temp was a pleasant 83 degrees) Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a peaceful crowd of a quarter of a million people.

LoanWord: A word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification. Today's loanwords come from three beautiful "Romance" languages. Spanish: Cigar, Tobacco, Patio, Savvy, Vigilante, Vanilla, Cockroach. (That last HAD to come from SOMEwhere!) Portuguese: Massage, Cashew, Zebra, Breeze, Grouper, Lingo, Caste, Coconut, Cuspidor, Marmalade, Potato, Sargasso, Zombie. (Blame them on the Portuguese.) Italian: Cartoon, Broccoli, Graffiti, Piano, Lagoon, Marina, Bank, Money, (those two would have to go together) Bandit, Casino, Balcony, Patio, Veranda, Stiletto, Gusto, Torso, Replica, Studio, Orange, Magenta, Sepia, Umber, Cantaloupe, Cauliflower and NOVEL!

***

Novel Quotes

(Isn't it interesting that novel can also mean new or unusual in an interesting way?)

“No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.”
 Ishmael Reed

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.”
Flannery O'Connor

“I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.”
Terry Pratchett

***

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful for a minor break in the heat. We're back to our more "normal" mid to high 90s. Between June and July we had 25 days where it was 100 degrees or more. 11 consecutive days in June, 13 in July. The hottest day was June 22, at 104. We wait with baited breath to see what August will bring. Hopefully rain.

Have you ever been conflicted about something you wrote? Did you do anything about it? What do you do to cool down when it's hot? Did you know that NOVEL came from Italian?

Alternatives for Believe

Alternatives is a recurring post in which I give synonyms for an over used word. Click on the tab above for a "complete" list of over used words. 


Depending on how you use it, this list may come in handy for finding another way to say the same thing.

Today's word is:  Believe

I allege there are better ways to spend one's time than worrying about things that might happen. I hold to the opinion that life is too short to be small. I imagine that I am one tiny thread in an infinitely complex web. I believe in love.

absorb, accept, account, accredit, adduce, admit, advance, affirm, air for, allege, analyze, appraise, appreciate, apprehend, ask, assay, assert, assess, assume, attach weight to,

bank on, bargain for, be certain of, be convinced of, be credulous, be of the opinion, bear in mind, bet bottom dollar, bet on, budget, buy

calculate, call for, care for, cast, catch, challenge, cipher, class, classify, collect, compass, comprehend, compute, conceive, conclude, conjecture, consider, count, count on, credit

decide, declare, deduce, deem, defend, depend on, determine, dig, digest

enumerate, envisage, estimate, evaluate, exact, examine, expect, expect from

fall for, fancy, fathom, feel, figure, follow, form opinion

gather, gauge, get, get the picture, give credence to, glean, grasp, guess, guesstimate

have, have dibs on, have faith in, have no doubt, hazard a guess, heed, hit, hit up, hold, hold an opinion, hold out for, hypothesize

imagine, infer, insist

judge, justify

keep in view, keep the faith, knock, know

lap up, lay claim to, lean on, look into, look upon

make allowance for, maintain

need, number

outline

perceive, pick up, pin faith on, place confidence in, plan, plan on, pop the question, posit, postulate, predict, presume, presume true, presuppose, pretend, profess, pronounce, prophesy

rank, rate, read, realize, reason, reckon on, reckon with, recognize, reflect, regard, rely on, remember, require, requisition, respect, rest assured, rest on, run over

scheme, score, sense, set a figure, set down, size up, solicit, speculate, stake on, stake out, sum, suppose, surmise, suspect, swallow, swear by

take, take a shot, take a stab, take as gospel, take at one’s word, take for granted, take into account, take it, take on, tax, theorize, think, think of, think through, trust, twig (this is new one on me)

understand, uphold

view, vindicate

Here's a trip down memory lane, from 1965. The Lovin' Spoonful were upbeat and refreshing at a time when things were getting edgy in the US and world stage and music was expressing discontent.


Dare I ask what you believe in?