Apr 25, 2012 12:12 PM

Etymologies at a Glance

Mike Kinde, who writes an incredible blog over at Ideas Illustrated, recently explored a way to see, at a glance, the historical origins of different words. Specifically, he wanted to computationally highlight text based on which words came from specific languages. So that’s what Kinde did. He constructed a simple program that takes text and […]

So that's what Kinde did. He constructed a simple program that takes text and highlights it based on language origin. Here is an excerpt from Tom Sawyer, where the colors represent Old English (pink), Middle English (red), Anglo-French (orange), Old French (light orange), Middle French (pale orange), and Classical and Medieval Latin (both yellow), Gallo-Roman and Middle Low German (both colored in gray), and American (green):

Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steam er Big Missouri work ed and sweat ed in the sun, the retire d artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangle d his leg s, munch ed his apple, and plann ed the slaughter of more innocent s. There was no lack of material; boy s happen ed along every little while; they came to jeer, but remain ed to white wash. By the time Ben was fagg ed out, Tom had trade d the next chance to Bill y Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he play ed out, Johnn y Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with — and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the after noon came, from be ing a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literal ly roll ing in wealth. He had beside the thing s before mention ed, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that would n’t un lock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopp er of a decant er, a tin soldier, a couple of tad pole s, six fire-cracker s, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar — but no dog — the handle of a knife, four piece s of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.

Kinde goes to examine other types of text, from legal text,

Where the coast s of two State s are opposite or adjacent to each other, neither of the two State s is entitle d, fail ing agreement between them to the contrary, to extend its territorial sea beyond the median line every point of which is equidistant from the near est point s on the base line s from which the breadth of the territorial sea s of each of the two State s is measure d. The above provision does not apply, how ever, where it is necessary by reason of historic title or other special circumstance s to delimit the territorial sea s of the two State s in a way which is at variance therewith.

to baseball:

It was a wild, wind y day at Mary vale Baseball Park before the rain s came with the Brew er s ahead, 6-4. The Brew er s score d their run s on a throw ing error, a delay ed double steal, a wind-blown pop up that fell in shallow center field, a field ing error on that same play, a wind-aid ed triple and a suicide squeeze bunt, all in three inning s of at-bat s.

The whole article is well worth checking out.

Top image: Visentico/Sento/Flickr/CC-licensed