{"id":893,"date":"2021-12-28T14:52:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T23:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=893"},"modified":"2021-12-28T20:58:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T05:58:33","slug":"youre-so-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=893","title":{"rendered":"The Weird Sisters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now, here\u2019s a word for you: weird. I looked it up and found a trail back to around 1400 C.E. (C.E. stands for Common Era, a secular way to say A.D., which, by the way, means \u201cAnno Domini,\u201d or the \u201cYear of our Lord\u201d in Latin, and NOT \u201cAfter Death\u201d). Anyway, an online search gives this word, in its modern iteration, a traceable history of at least 700 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original meaning of \u201cweird\u201d was \u201cable to control destiny.\u201d The word apparently started out in Proto-Indo-European (the Australopithecus of the family of human languages) \u201cwert-\u201c, meaning to change the direction of something; thence to something in Old Norse that I cannot transcribe with my QWERTY keyboard, which means \u201cfate,\u201d but also refers to one of those three eyeball-sharing witches that wind their way down through so many mythological stories; on down to \u201cwurt\u201d in Old High German; from there perhaps to Old Saxon\u2019s \u201cwurd\u201d; or maybe by way of a pit-stop as Proto-German\u2019s \u201cwurthiz\u201d; and finally (last stop with a weird spelling), a stint in Old English under the guise of \u201cwyrd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Move on into Middle English, and the modern spelling will eventually emerge. So, how did this word find its way into modern slang; why do today\u2019s youth casually refer to one another as \u201cweirdo\u201d without looking over their shoulders? According to my source, we can blame it on old Mr. Shakespeare, who in writing Macbeth<\/em>, referred to his three witches as \u201cThe Weird Sisters.\u201d And indeed, these women were weird by today\u2019s standards\u2014throwing around frog parts, making a repulsive stew, and dancing around their fire like demented cranes. Hence, the gradual evolution of the word from something to inspire terror to a concept barely worthy of a raised eyebrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being one of three sisters who grew up way, way<\/em> out in the country and were light-heartedly accused by some classmates of being Druids, I find it easy to let the phrase \u201cthe Weird Sisters\u201d roll off my tongue when referring to us, and of course I mean that in the most classical sense possible. I’ll end by pointing out the familiar in Mary’s lap, and then I’ll let you be the judge: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For your further edification:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

weird | Etymology, origin and meaning of weird by etymonline<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Familiar (noun): a demon supposedly attending and obeying a witch, often said to assume the form of an animal. (1) familiar definition – Bing<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, here\u2019s a word for you: weird. I looked it up and found a trail back to around 1400 C.E. (C.E. stands for Common Era, a secular way to say A.D., which, by the way, means \u201cAnno Domini,\u201d or the \u201cYear of our Lord\u201d in Latin, and NOT \u201cAfter Death\u201d). Anyway, an online search gives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[322,388,387],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings-about-language-and-life","tag-etymology","tag-sisters","tag-weird"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}