Phase to Ground » Blog

It’s been a While

dana — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:46:26 +0000

It's hard to believe, but today was the first time I've posted a comic in close to a year! Between getting married, buying a house, and work, I've been neglecting my faithful readership (of 3). I'm still working on some new ideas for comics, so stick with me, and hopefully it'll be less than a year until the next one!

Pac-Google-Man

dana — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:52:50 +0000

If you happened to be off of work last Friday, first off, I hate you. Second, you may have missed the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man tribute in Google's first playable Doodle. Now don't come crying to me saying you want to waste time on Monday, because Google has created a permanent page for running Pac-Man around the Google logo.

Never mind the fact that there have been flash versions of Pac-Man around for a while now, it's cool now!

The Origins of 10 Nicknames

dana — Mon, 24 May 2010 17:18:32 +0000

I'm probably the only crazy person that is bothered by some of the nicknames that people are given that don't seem to make any sense, but the good folks over at Mental Floss have enlightened me. I can now die a happy man. Almost, I'm still waiting for that Baja Bug.

4. Why is Jack from John?

The name Jack dates back to about 1,200 and was originally used as a generic name for peasants. Over time, Jack worked his way into words such as lumberjack and steeplejack. Even jackass, the commonly used term for a donkey, retains its generic essence in the word Jack. Of course, John was once used as a generic name for English commoners and peasants, (John Doe) which could be why Jack came became his nickname. But the more likely explanation is that Normans added -kin when they wanted to make a diminutive. And Jen was their way of saying John. So little John became Jenkin and time turned that into Jakin, which ultimately became Jack

Source: Mental Floss Blog: The Origins of 10 Nicknames