This morning I woke around 3:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to focus on etymology, a subject I have a passion for… I know, I know… it’s not for everyone. For those who don’t know the definition, etymology is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their sound and meaning over time. Of course one thing led to another… as it usually does, where I then realize that my sudden wakefulness and subsequent research was a strategic influence of my inner twin.
So, I’re researching the “r” sound that seems to me to be rudimentary — a wide range of animals use it to communicate in for instance, a “bark” sound that’s more like sudden short and piercing outbursts of “ARR … ARR”, and of course there’s the guttural “rrrr” (grrr— growl). It’s interesting to note, that the word “bark” means three things in the English language as revealed by the etymology of BARK:
-bark(n.1)"tree skin, hard covering of plants," c. 1300-bark(n.2) "small vessel or ship," French -barque "boat" (15c.) (see barge)
-bark (n.3) "utter an abrupt, explosive cry"
Now it seems to me that if early humans did indeed forage from the sea as some believe (as do I), they would have noted the sharp “bark” of seals warning other seals of a “shark”,… that in turn warned nearby early humans foraging the mouths of tidal inlets. Note the “ark” found in “shark” and “bark”…, hmmmm, also in “stark” and “dark”!? Now if I were swimming when the barks are sounded, I would look for the closest refuge— how about that big long chunk of floating “bark”… YES!! And so le voi la— the first boat!? This would be called “word connection” where the “the warning/the danger/the recourse action” are reflected in words and in this case “arrk(bark)/shark/bark(barge). So note the following etymology regarding the word shark:
If so, it is possibly from German Schorck, a variant of Schurke "
And that reminded me of “cork”… also bark from the cork tree. On investigating cork, I was directed to another older word, “corium”, that provided the following info:
PIE root *sker- (1) "to cut" (compare Sanskrit krtih "hide;" Old Church Slavonic scora "skin," Russian skora"hide," kora "bark;" Welsh corwg "boat made with leather skins,"
We have another word for boat — “corwg”, that’s obviously related to “bark” (boat and tree bark/skin). So, with my brain going 100 miles a minute, suddenly “quark” comes to mind… I wasn’t even sure if it was a legitimate word… butt may be related to quirk?! Note the etymology of quark:
quark(n.)
hypothetical subatomic particle having a fractional electric charge, 1964, applied by U.S. physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019), who said in correspondence with the editors of the OED in 1978 that he took it from a word in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1939), but also that the sound of the word was in his head before he encountered the printed form in Joyce.
Now THAT’S a different take!! This time I’m looking at it not so much in the etymology sense, butt the inner twin sense… the sound of the word had popped up in his head … and so not related to James Joyce’s earlier use of the quirky word. And then the book “Finnegans Wake” jived in cryptic fashion aka “fin” (as in shark dorsal fin— what is usually spotted first)… and “wake”, a word that involves “eyes”… a common theme in recent posts, albeit a “blind eye Theme”. You certainly don’t want to turn a blind eye to a sharks fin while swimming!! It’s interesting to note that “Wake” cropped up just a few days ago, note from Wikipedia’s Deaths in 2025 site:
- Waké Nibombe (19 February 1974 – 16 October 2025) 51, footballer (national team)
As it turns out, the wake in the books title is a funeral wake!! Note the etymology root origin of the word wake:
*weg-Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to be strong, be lively."
I then googled, “was James Joyce blind in one eye”, and AI brought up this image and answer:
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Yes, James Joyce was effectively blind in one eye and had severely impaired vision in the other, to the point of near-blindness. He suffered from chronic eye problems like iritis,glaucoma, and cataracts, which led to over a dozen eye surgeries and the use of an eyepatch at one
Note the “Finnegan’s Wake” publication date:
The date, 4 May, being a cryptic “for May”… my name being “May”… makes perfect inner twin world cryptic sense!!
Venturing to James Joyce’s wikipedia page, and perusing the notable persons mentioned, the one who stood out the most:
Franklin Thomas Grant Richards (21 October 1872 – 24 February 1948)
As you can see, his birthday is TODAY, not to mention the number of times October 21st cropped up in yesterday’s post. This is a significant DAY!! The context in which Richard’s had cropped up us also interesting:
was unable to get Dubliners published. Although the London publisher Grant Richards had a contract with Joyce, the printers were unwilling to print passages they found controversial; English law could not protect them if brought to court for circulating indecent language.
Another notable persons mentioned on Joyce’s wiki page also stood out, moreso for his name and for what he did as judge for his novel Ulysses:
Ulysses was not legally published in the United States until 1934, when Judge John M. Woolsey ruled in United States v. One Book Called Ulysses that the book is not obscene
His surname “Woolsey” caught my eye given the “wool”… reminding me of the saying “pull the wool over ones eyes”, … and so in keeping with the “Eyes Theme” pattern cluster. Note from his wikipedia page:
John Munro Woolsey (January 3, 1877 – May 4, 1945)
Hmmm, another “for May”!” Note from Woolsey’s wiki page:
Woolsey's best-known decision likely was his 1933 ruling in United States v. One Book Called Ulysses that James Joyce's novel Ulysses was not obscene and could lawfully be imported into the United States.[8] This decision, which came about in a test caseengineered by Bennett Cerf of Random House, was affirmed by a 2–1 vote of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in an opinion by Judge Augustus Noble Hand.[9] Because Cerf reprinted Woolsey's opinion in all copies of Ulyssespublished by his firm, the opinion has been said to be the most widely distributed judicial opinion in history
WOW!! There’s hope for me… and Tou … and the inner twin world!! And the name Bennett cropping up stands out given my ex-partners surname is Bennett. Note from Bennett Cerf’s wiki page:
Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971)
My Dad also passed away on August 27th,… a date that is also a prominent birthday among our family members. And so the next person above is that much more meaningful with a name like “August Noble Hand” (this post must be for you DAD xo):
Augustus Noble Hand (July 26, 1869 – October 28, 1954)
There were others who stood out on Joyce’s wiki page, butt maybee I’ll just leave that to you.
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My notes :
My interest in etymology began when I started writing fiction that involved our prehistoric ancestors at a time when language was developing and so moving from the early predominant use of sign/gesture to vocals. I am also a proponent of what’s referred to as the “Aquatic Ape Hypothesis” (postulates that our ancestors took a divergent evolutionary pathway from other great apes by adapting to a more aquatic habitat). On that note, it’s interesting to consider that our nearest relatives, bonobo’s and chimpanzee’s, use gesture and vocals to communicate, albeit they have a much larger repertoire of gestured language. And today, we humans a gesture that’s widely used by chimps ie: we stretch out an open hand when begging for something.
One of the vocals that Bonobo’s and Chimp’s use to express danger/a threat, is a “bark”. In the case of the word “bark”, note it’s similarity to an animals bark… except it’s more lie “aaarrk, … aaarrk…”. Hmmm, “ark” is also a word in the English language. And other animals such as wolves, dogs, seals and otters bark. In fact, the seal barks under water. Again, the bark is used to warn others as well as an aggressive display.
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Origin of Speech
Possible semi-aquatic adaptations
Recent insights in human evolution – more specifically, human Pleistocene littoral evolution[78] – may help understand how human speech evolved. One controversial suggestion is that certain pre-adaptations for spoken language evolved during a time when ancestral hominins lived close to river banks and lake shores rich in fatty acids and other brain-specific nutrients. Occasional wading or swimming may also have led to enhanced breath-control (breath-hold diving).
Independent lines of evidence suggest that "archaic" Homo spread intercontinentally along the Indian Ocean shores (they even reached overseas islands such as Flores) where they regularly dived for littoral foods such as shell- and crayfish,[79] which are extremely rich in brain-specific nutrients, explaining Homo's brain enlargement.[80] Shallow diving for seafoods requires voluntary airway control, a prerequisite for spoken language. Seafood such as shellfish generally does not require biting and chewing, but stone tool use and suction feeding. This finer control of the oral apparatus was arguably another biological pre-adaptation to human speech, especially for the production of consonants
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The aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH), also referred to as aquatic ape theory (AAT) or the waterside hypothesis of human evolution, postulates that the ancestors of modern humans took a divergent evolutionary pathway from the other great apes by becoming adapted to a more aquatic habitat.[1] While the hypothesis has some popularity with the lay public, it is generally ignored or classified as pseudoscience by anthropologists.
Crawford and Marsh opined that the brain size in aquatic mammals is similar to humans, and that other primates and carnivores lost relative brain capacity.[63] Cunnane, Stewart, Crawford, and colleagues published works arguing a correlation between aquatic diet and human brain evolution in their "shore-based diet scenario",[64][65][66] acknowledging the Hardy/Morgan's thesis as a foundation work of their model.[67] As evidence, they describe health problems in landlocked communities, such as cretinism in the Alps and goitre in parts of Africa due to salt-derived iodine deficiency,[68][69] and state that inland habitats cannot naturally meet human iodide requirements.[70]
They also claim that the archaeological record of human fishing and coastal settlement is fundamentally deficient due to postglacial sea level rise.[61]
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