Tiny rant

[hearthstone]

I've just done a search including the word "faining" and discovered that most of the hits were actually cases of people misspelling "feigning". I make no claims of having perfect spelling, but anyone who's at all familiar with English should know that you can't assume that the way a word sounds is the way it's spelled.

People of the internet: using big words will only impress if you also know how to spell them.

Comments

[raistlynn.livejournal.com]

Or know what the words mean in the first place!

[witchchild]

*snickers*

I'm also sensing some potential jokes in that misspelling.

[raistlynn.livejournal.com]

witchchild I love that icon! :)

[daeron.livejournal.com]

Of course, it gets fun when you realize that "fain" and "faining" are real words. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Noun (Obsolete):
Gladdness, Joy
Adjective:
1. Glad, rejoiced, well-pleased. Often in phrases, full fain, glad and fain. Now chiefly dialect or poetry
2. Glad under the circumstances; glad or content to take a certain course in default of opportunity for anything better, or as the lesser of two evils
3. Disposed, inclined or willing, eager
4. (Obsolete) Well-disposed, favourable
Adverb:
Gladly, willingly, with pleasure. Frequent in I, he, etc. would (had) fain
Verb:
1. To be delighted or glad, rejoice
2. To make glad. Hence to welcome (a person); also, to congratulate
3. To rejoice in, enjoy; also, to take to gladly, show preference for

faining:gladsome, affectionate; also, longing, wistful.

(have I ever mentioned that I LOVE having access to the Oxford dictionary online through work?)

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

Oooh, can you tell me the etymology?

Trying to find that is the reason I've been doing the web searches. A lot of heathens have taken to preferring the word "faining" over "blot," feeling that blot should only refer to an actual blood offering (since "blot" does mean "blood").

On the one hand, there's recent history (thirty years of calling them all blot); on the other, there's accuracy and the desire to differentiate between the two. (Personally, having been to both, I can say that the difference in what's going on is one of degree rather than of nature, but it's still a good point.)

Only my impression has been that "blot" is from the Icelandic (rather, it means "sacrifice" but is derived from "blood") and "faining" is from the Anglo-Saxon (although I may be making assumptions here). (Only I wasn't able to find faining in my Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, but then being concise it isn't likely to be complete.)

[daeron.livejournal.com]

Etymologies on request (also courtesy of the OED online)

noun I can't find. The OED isn't clear
adjective Old English fæen (glad, happy, cheerful), fæn = Old Saxon fagan, fagin, Old Norse. feginn (glad); allied to Old English geféon (past tense gefeah), Old High German gifehan (past tense gifah) to rejoice
verbOld English fænian, fæenian = Old Norse fagna, Old Saxon faganôn, faginôn, Old High German faginôn, feginôn, Gothic faginôn (to rejoice)

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

Very cool, thank you!

And now I can look again at my Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic and see that there are several alternate meanings for fagna--the first is "to rejoice in a thing" but the third is "to rejoice, make a feast, at the beginning of winter, Yule, summer). The second has to do with making someone welcome.) That's just the connection I needed to continue my research--thanks! :)

[daeron.livejournal.com]

No problem. Fortunately for you, etymologies and linguistics are hobbies of mine.

[weofodthignen]

This is a theodisc word, however far it has spread from them. Unfortunately, Garman had a habit of using invented or dubious A-S over words that anybody might know from reading A-S. In this case, I would bet you money he saw the Norse fægna, connected it to Latin fanum, "temple," and reverse engineered an Anglo-Saxonism.

Frith,
M

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

Ah! And with fagna also meaning a seasonal celebration, that would have been an easy connection to make.

ut you're saying that there really isn't such a word in Anglo-Saxon? I wasn't able to find one, but I assumed it was my own lack of knowledge or resources there.

[weofodthignen]

The main entry in Bosworth-Toller is fægnian, "to rejoice." Alternate spellings: fægenian, fagnian, fahnian. This translates Latin gaudere. The ancestor of the adjective "fain" is listed under the spellings fægen (by far most common) and fægn, and has not changed meaning (joyful, elated); it's just become rare and faded. I note that fæger, "beautiful"--the ancestor of "fair" as in "fair of face"--is sometimes used in the extended meaning "joyful." (As I can say in Modern English, "That's lovely news.")

But words for sacrificing/offering/doing stuff in temples? None.

Bosworth-Toller is the big book; Clark-Hall is teensy. Bosworth-Toller is online and searchable here. There are 2 disadvantages to using this site: most of the pages are raw scans that have not been proofread, so æ and þ tend to appear as something else; and (often an advantage), after the Bosworth-Toller hits it proceeds to give you hits from the Cleasby-Vigfusson Icelandic dictionary and then Thorpe's Icelandic dictionary--so you have to be careful not to inadvertently cite a Norse word as an A-S one through not seeing where that search took you. With those warnings, this is in effect not only an etymological tool but a reverse A-S dictionary. Wha-hey!!!!

BUT the darned search function seems to be down yet again . . . I wanted to check for all translations of Latin fanum. I cannot see any words derived from that that could be ancestors of the verb "fain" as the theodisc use it. I can only find templ and tempel--and hearg and ealh. I'd like to have run a check. But yes, I think Garman and co. made up the word "fain" as they use it.

Frith,
M

[smithing-chick.livejournal.com]

My spelling is terrible as a rule. But things like that make me feel better about it. And at least I know what the words mean. My parents told m when I was little to look things up in a dictionary. The dictionary we had at home was the Oxford English Dictionary. I miss it.