Here's an interesting piece....
Jun. 26th, 2013 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyHas anybody else heard people using happy as a verb?
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/when-did-happy-become-a-verb/
Incidentally, the comments section has given me reason to turn to the online OED (man, I love the Internet!) to look up various words, including, of course, happy.
Happy is connected to the word happen through the root hap, which means roughly good luck. A happy person was originally a lucky person, which I guess would make anybody happy.
(Incidentally, etymonline lists happify from 1619 and says this about happy:
late 14c., "lucky, favored by fortune, prosperous;" of events, "turning out well," from hap (n.) "chance, fortune" + -y (2). Sense of "very glad" first recorded late 14c. Ousted Old English eadig (from ead "wealth, riches") and gesælig, which has become silly. Meaning "greatly pleased and content" is from 1520s. Old English bliðe "happy" survives as blithe. From Greek to Irish, a great majority of the European words for "happy" at first meant "lucky." An exception is Welsh, where the word used first meant "wise."
But I digress.)
Anyway, after looking up "happy" I looked up "hap" just to see what it said there, and came across this citation:
1681 W. Robertson Phraseologia Generalis (1693) 471 Some have the hap; some stick in the gap.
I like the rhythm of it. I almost want to resurrect the word just so I can say that (incessantly) when her nieces complain something or other that is a matter of chance just isn't fair.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/when-did-happy-become-a-verb/
Incidentally, the comments section has given me reason to turn to the online OED (man, I love the Internet!) to look up various words, including, of course, happy.
Happy is connected to the word happen through the root hap, which means roughly good luck. A happy person was originally a lucky person, which I guess would make anybody happy.
(Incidentally, etymonline lists happify from 1619 and says this about happy:
late 14c., "lucky, favored by fortune, prosperous;" of events, "turning out well," from hap (n.) "chance, fortune" + -y (2). Sense of "very glad" first recorded late 14c. Ousted Old English eadig (from ead "wealth, riches") and gesælig, which has become silly. Meaning "greatly pleased and content" is from 1520s. Old English bliðe "happy" survives as blithe. From Greek to Irish, a great majority of the European words for "happy" at first meant "lucky." An exception is Welsh, where the word used first meant "wise."
But I digress.)
Anyway, after looking up "happy" I looked up "hap" just to see what it said there, and came across this citation:
1681 W. Robertson Phraseologia Generalis (1693) 471 Some have the hap; some stick in the gap.
I like the rhythm of it. I almost want to resurrect the word just so I can say that (incessantly) when her nieces complain something or other that is a matter of chance just isn't fair.
