The ultimate source of truth is uncertain, but the best guess going is that it comes from Proto Indo European dru, which meant “oak”. From ancient times, the oak was a symbol of strength and faithfulness. The root dru is also the source of tree, truce, troth, tryst, trough, endure, dryad, and (almost certainly) druid.

Dru descended into Proto Germanic as trewwjaz, “trustworthy”, and Old English as triewe, the old form of true. Truth is the nominal form of the adjective true. The final “th” is an ancient suffix indicating that it is a noun (compare, e.g., wide vs. width, born vs. birth, etc.).

Truth and all of its close relatives start out with the very strong directed energy of “tr”; for true, truth, and truce, the energy also “goes with the flow” — presumably implying that for something to be true, it must be in accord with reality’s flow.

Thanks to Jessa for suggesting this word of the day, and to Slade for suggesting the awesome new image motif.

A clipping of weblog, dating from 1998. Weblog itself is attested in 1994, though not in the sense of an online journal.

The sound of the word blog is noisome — it calls to mind bog, frog, hog, dog, fog, grog, blob, blot, and soggy. It gives the impression of something rather… messy. It’s remarkable that something which physically consists only of patterns in electronic memory should be described with a word that suggests so strongly earth, water, and the life that thrives there where they mingle.

Blog begins with a burst of Source-energy that fills all available space. The result is represented by “g” — a sound that means something like a container that is filled with void and yet is the ultimate grounding of everything. Blog and words similar to it — these “messy” words — are, I suspect, words of chaos: the chaos that is also the Source. A bog may be a big mess, but it is also teeming with life and possibility. A blog is quite similar, but note that the addition of the “l”, indicating its liquid, light-like qualities, hinting at its electronic nature and semi-universal availability.

Obviously this neat match between sound and meaning wasn’t devised by the fellow who clipped weblog into blog nine years ago. The way in which the universe contrives to build these “coincidences” never ceases to amaze me.

Angel is not a word from Proto Indo European; it began as a term in some unknown Asian language, perhaps related to Sanskrit ajira, “swift”. This term was borrowed into Greek at some point — the Greeks had a great deal of commerce with southern Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East — and became both angaros, “mounted courier”, and angelos, “messenger”. When the Bible was written in Greek, angelos was chosen to translate the Hebrew term mal’akh yhwh, “messenger of God”. When the Bible was translated into Latin, instead of using a Latin term for “messenger”, such as cursor or nuntium, the word angelos was borrowed over as angelus. This then descended into English as angel.

The sounds of angel indicate an elastic, spread-out energy that narrows toward a troubled or difficult decision point, before relaxing into a liquid light/air state. The primary stressed syllable (”ang”) carries the focus of the meaning, which is the gathering of the energy to the decision point. Presumably this refers to the action of the angels in guiding their charges through difficult times.