02 November 2025

The surprising etymology of "giddy"

"Giddy" is a familiar word, typically used to convey that the speaker is "joyfully elated; overcome with excitement or happiness," but it began life meaning possessed by a demon.  I'll let Wiktionary explain:
The adjective is derived from Middle English gidi, gedy, gydy (“demonically controlled or possessed; crazy, insane; foolish, idiotic, ridiculous, unwise; unsure; (rare) dizzy, shaky; (rare) of an animal: crazed, out of control; a fool”) [and other forms], from Old English gidiġ, gydiġ (“possessed by a demon or spirit, insane, mad”), from Proto-West Germanic *gudīg (“ghostly, spirited”, literally “possessed by a god or spirit”), from *god (“god”) + *-ig, *-g (suffix forming adjectives with the senses of being, doing, or having). The English word is analysable as god +‎ -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’, forming adjectives).
You learn something every day.

Tilted-room sketches by Shaun Micallef


A sketch from The Micallef P(r)ogram(me).  And if you like that one, here's more:


Second repost (originally posted 2013) because after checking all the news online, I needed a laugh.  And this never gets old.

Watching the World Series... from a hotel bed

"The only hotel in North America to be found in a major league sports and entertainment venue, the Toronto Marriott City Centre has 348 pet-friendly guest rooms, including 68 that look right out into the stadium."
A recent Bloomberg article offered some observations regarding the monetary aspects of baseball'w World Series:
Sam McDadi, a real estate agent and holder of three tickets behind home plate  [will] attend Game 6 himself and bring two friends, despite receiving offers of as much as C$30,000 ($21,415) per seat. But he admitted to being tempted by that amount, especially when he bought his tickets for about C$3,000 each...

For those with smaller budgets, the cheapest available ticket for Friday’s game on the resale site StubHub was around $1,280 as of late Thursday night Toronto time...

Other businesses are also cashing in. The Blue Jays’ home stadium has an unusual feature: a Marriott hotel with 55 field-view rooms. Those went on sale Tuesday morning starting at C$8,500 per night for Games 6 and 7 and sold out immediately, according to a hotel executive. As of Thursday evening, Marriott’s booking site showed rooms available — because of canceled reservations — for around C$12,000 for Friday night...

...financial firms that have corporate boxes at the stadium will use access as a reward system. For anyone lucky enough to get an invitation, “it means you’re a good client, a good customer.”
There are all sorts of lines of commentary I could offer, depending on whether I'm wearing my sports-fan cap or my "elderly grumpy woke person" hat.  With regard to both of those hats, I'll note that every player on the field is not only a millionaire, but earns several million dollars every year, and they are battling to decide who will become the bigger multimillionaires.  

But the big transfer of wealth goes from the general public to the corporate overlords who control the business.  It's generally agreed that everyone is entitled to spend their money any way they please, and if someone chooses the World Series rather than sending funds to World Central Kitchen, they can do so.  But it feels oddly disturbing that this is what our world is evolving into.

Embedded mage and excerpted text from Adventures All Around, where there are more details about these rooms.
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