T, t November, the Alphabet Project

Throughout the month of November, I'll be blogging about the alphabet and etymology.

T, t: From the Semitic taw, “mark,” a meta-letter unique in the original so-called Phoenician alphabet in that instead of a monkey or a house or an ox or a throwing stick, it is a mark that represents nothing but a mark.


time: The interval between events. (See space) From the Old English tima, also meaning tide, the sea-faring Anglo-Saxons not differentiating the swell and sink of ocean from the abstraction embodied. From the Greek kairos, and ultimately from the Proto Indo-European di-mon, a compound using the root da-, “cut in pieces.”

tmesis: (tə mē΄ sĭs) A figure of speech in which a syllable or word is inserted into another word, often for dramatic or rhetorical effect, as in “a whole nother” or “in-freaking-credible.” From the Greek tmesis, “cutting” or “cut.” (See time.)

Coming November 30th, Return of the STOOPID CONTEST!