No, not the Pixar movie, Dear Reader…

*/grins… I love that film, Clicky…*

Sew… carrying on from today’s earlier post, and I’d really like to get this one wrapped up before the end the year, let’s take a look at the word ‘bug‘…

“insect, beetle,” 1620s (earliest reference is to bedbugs), of unknown origin, probably (but not certainly) from or influenced by Middle English bugge “something frightening, scarecrow” (late 14c.), a meaning obsolete since the “insect” sense arose except in bugbear (1570s) and bugaboo (q.v.).

Probably connected with Scottish bogill “goblin, bugbear,” or obsolete Welsh bwg “ghost, goblin” (compare Welsh bwgwl “threat,” earlier “fear,” Middle Irish bocanách “supernatural being”). Some speculate that these words are from a root meaning “goat” (see buck (n.1)) and represent originally a goat-like spectre. Compare also bogey (n.1) and Puck. Middle English Dictionary compares Low German bögge, böggel-mann “goblin.” Perhaps influenced in meaning by Old English -budda used in compounds for “beetle” (compare Low German budde “louse, grub,” Middle Low German buddech“thick, swollen”).

In the United States bug is not confined, as in England, to the domestic pest, but is applied to all insects of the Coleoptera order, which includes what in this country are generally called beetles. [Farmer & Henley, “Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English,” 1912 abridged edition]

Meaning “defect in a machine” (1889) may have been coined c. 1878 by Thomas Edison (perhaps with the notion of an insect getting into the works). Meaning “person obsessed by an idea” (as in firebug“arsonist”) is from 1841, perhaps from notion of persistence. Sense of “microbe, germ” is from 1919. Bugs “crazy” is from c. 1900. Bug juice as a slang name for drink is from 1869, originally “bad whiskey.” The 1811 slang dictionary has bug-hunter “an upholsterer.” Bug-word “word or words meant to irritate and vex” is from 1560s.

As we heard earlier, a pearl is created from a grain of sand or a parasite irritating the fuck out of any oyster…

*/lights up… Yeah and an oyster can irritate the fuck out of you if it’s contaminated with a bug… /puffs…*

The seed of this shamble idea was sown in January 2015 but it started to germinate on this Friday evening just gone…

*Germ–innate… /drags… innit! …/blows smoke ring…*

… When Cade DMed me on Twitter…

*/taps ash… Sandy–Hook… /drags… I dunno, Clicky, sounds beachy…*

*/smokes and thinks… We are completely immersed and riddled with bacteria, Clicky… We can’t live without them. They are everywhere and they are invisible…*

Indeed I had contacted my other bestie, Leggy, in January 2015 on a bacteria-related query – he’s a proper microbiologist…

A Void had posted an interesting idea at Red Frank‘s MEROVEE…

*/cough… I couldn’t believe it when I read the link again, Clicky… /pats lips… She starts off talking about archons! …/drags…*

A Void’s links…

• The second brain: Gut bacteria control human behavior to get the best nutrients
• Gut Bacteria: Now Assuming Control Of Your Brain
• Gut Bacteria Control Our Minds To Get The Food They Want; How Countering This Can Fight Obesity

… And Leggy’s reply…

… Of course I replied…

Bacteria (n.)

1847, plural of Modern Latin bacterium, from Greek bakterion“small staff,” diminutive of baktron “stick, rod, staff, cudgel.” So called because the first ones observed were rod-shaped. Introduced as a scientific word 1838 by German naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. The Greek word is from a PIE *bak-“staff used for support, peg” (compare Latin baculum“rod, walking stick;” Irish bacc, Welsh bach“hook, crooked staff;” Middle Dutch pegel“peg, pin, bolt”). De Vaan writes, “Since *b was very rare in PIE, and Celtic shows an unexplained geminate, we are probably dealing with a loanword from an unidentified source.”