Jurassic
I’ve always been mildly curious about the origins of the era names we use for Deep Time like Jurassic and Cretaceous. In particular, I often mix up the more recent ones. I finally laid them out spatially in a spreadsheet to try to wrap my head around it and wanted to share what I learned. At a high level, it’s pretty amazing how difficult of a problem naming eras is. Like with elements, when you discover one, you know very little about it and the name is very difficult to change even hundreds of years later.
Eons: Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic, Phanerozoic. These are all Greek and mean roughly “hellish”, “ancient”, “earlier life”, and “visible life”. Hundreds of years later we have evidence of life in the Archean, but we certainly didn’t at the time.
Most recent eras: Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic. These are all Greek and mean roughly “old life”, “middle life”, and “new life”. They’re all subdivisions of the Phanerozoic eon, which we of course now also have evidence for life existing before.
Most recent periods: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleogene, Neogene, Quaternary. Everything before Paleogene is mostly named for the place where it was first discovered. Paleogene and Neogene are of course Greek, meaning roughly “old birth” and “new birth” (“gene” as in “genesis”). Quaternary is actually the usually quite rare English word for “fourth”, the term after primary, secondary, tertiary.
Most recent epochs: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Holocene (and Anthropocene, which is currently in proposal phase). These were discovered out of order and out of context and are retrospectively an incredible feat of naming. They’re all Greek, meaning roughly “old new”, “dawn new”, “few new”, “less new”, “more new”, “most new”, “all new”, and “human new”.
| Eon | Era | Period | Epoch | Start (Mya) | End (Mya) | Greek Gloss | Place Name |
| Hadean | 4567 | 4031 | hellish | ||||
| Archean | 4031 | 2500 | ancient | ||||
| Eoarchean | 4031 | 3600 | dawn ancient | ||||
| Paleoarchean | 3600 | 3200 | old ancient | ||||
| Mesoarchean | 3200 | 2800 | middle ancient | ||||
| Neoarchean | 2800 | 2500 | new ancient | ||||
| Proterozoic | 2500 | 539 | earlier life | ||||
| Paleoproterozoic | 2500 | 1600 | old earlier life | ||||
| Siderian | 2500 | 2300 | iron | ||||
| Rhyacian | 2300 | 2050 | stream of lava | ||||
| Orosirian | 2050 | 1800 | mountain range | ||||
| Statherian | 1800 | 1600 | stable | ||||
| Mesoproterozoic | 1600 | 1000 | middle earlier life | ||||
| Calymmian | 1600 | 1400 | cover | ||||
| Ectasian | 1400 | 1200 | extension | ||||
| Stenian | 1200 | 1000 | narrow | ||||
| Neoproterozoic | 1000 | 539 | new earlier life | ||||
| Tonian | 1000 | 720 | stretch | ||||
| Cryogenian | 720 | 635 | cold birth | ||||
| Ediacaran | 635 | 539 | Ediacara Hills, Australia | ||||
| Phanerozoic | 539 | 0 | visible life | ||||
| Paleozoic | 539 | 252 | old life | ||||
| Cambrian | 539 | 485 | Cymru (Wales) | ||||
| Terreneuvian | 539 | 521 | Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) | ||||
| (unnamed) | 521 | 509 | |||||
| Miaolingian | 509 | 497 | Miao Ling, China | ||||
| Furongian | 497 | 485 | lotus (Mandarin) | ||||
| Ordovician | 485 | 444 | Ordovices (Celtic tribe) | ||||
| Silurian | 444 | 419 | Silures (Celtic tribe) | ||||
| Llandovery | 444 | 433 | Llandovery, Wales | ||||
| Wenlock | 433 | 427 | Wenlock Edge, England | ||||
| Ludlow | 427 | 423 | Ludlow, England | ||||
| Pridoli | 423 | 419 | Přídolí, Czechia | ||||
| Devonian | 419 | 359 | Devon, England | ||||
| Carboniferous | 359 | 300 | coal-bearing (Latin) | ||||
| Mississippian | 359 | 323 | Mississippi, USA | ||||
| Pennsylvanian | 323 | 300 | Pennsylvania, USA | ||||
| Permian | 300 | 252 | Perm, Russia | ||||
| Cisuralian | 300 | 273 | Ural Mountains (Russia/Kazakhstan) | ||||
| Guadalupian | 273 | 260 | Guadalupe Mountains, USA | ||||
| Lopingian | 260 | 252 | Loping, China | ||||
| Mesozoic | 252 | 66 | middle life | ||||
| Triassic | 252 | 201 | triad (Latin) | ||||
| Jurassic | 201 | 145 | Jura Mountains (France/Switzerland) | ||||
| Cretaceous | 145 | 66 | chalk (Latin) | ||||
| Cenozoic | 66 | 0 | new life | ||||
| Paleogene | 66 | 23 | old birth | ||||
| Paleocene | 66 | 56 | old new | ||||
| Eocene | 56 | 33.9 | dawn new | ||||
| Oligocene | 33.9 | 23 | few new | ||||
| Neogene | 23 | 2.58 | new birth | ||||
| Miocene | 23 | 5.33 | less new | ||||
| Pliocene | 5.33 | 2.58 | more new | ||||
| Quaternary | 2.58 | 0 | fourth (English) | ||||
| Pleistocene | 2.58 | 0.012 | most new | ||||
| Holocene | 0.012 | 0 | all new | ||||
| Anthropocene* | 0 | 0 | human new |
yoink
The interjection yoink is probably not in even the top three words coined by The Simpsons, even though it’s likely the most commonly used now. It’s first heard in the 1993 episode Duffless, but quickly becomes a signature sound effect for the series. It was created by series writer George Meyer, possibly as an onomatopoeia for a rising violin sound effect that accompanied snatching something in old comedies. Series writer Bill Oakley instead claims it was taken from Jughead comics, but I wasn’t able to find a searchable archive.
Truly the Shakespeare of our time.
helicopter
The machine helicopter is a borrowing from “hélicoptère”, first named in French in 1861 by Gustave de Ponton d’Amécourt. His machine did not fly; the first nontrivial helicopter flight would not be completed until 1923, but the name stuck. Hélicoptère was a novel compound of the Ancient Greek words ἕλιξ (hélix, “spiral”) and πτερόν (pterón, “wing”). Some other derivations from those Greek words include, well, “helix”, and “pterodactyl”.
In the intervening time, people reinterpreted the compound as heli- + -copter rather than helico- + -pter. Both rebracketed affixes are productive in English! For example, “helipad” is first attested in 1960, not too long after the first commercially viable helicopter started production in 1942. “Quadcopter” is first attested in 2004 as the media term for what researchers had been calling “quadrotors”. (I delight in linguistic frankensteins, so folks insisting it should be “tetrapter” instead since “quad” is Latin are a fun side note to me.)
More recently, “helicopter parent” became a common phrase in the early 2000s, but the metaphor is a bit older, first seeing print in 1989.
Best of 2023
Here’s 20 works I first tried in 2023 that have have surprised and delighted me.
Games
- The Last Spell (2023) - Hopeless defense roguelike tactical RPG par excellence. I’ll be playing this for years.
- Pentiment (2022) - Lovingly crafted role-playing murder mystery set in 1518 Germany. The historical accuracy and empathy is icing, but what amazing icing.
- Fire Emblem Engage (2023) - Ridiculously underrated, probably because it immediately follows the excellent in a very different way Three Houses. I thought it had the best Fire Emblem maps and gameplay of any game this decade.
- Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (2023) - I grew up alongside Final Fantasy games, so playing through 30+ years of my life’s soundtrack to the beat felt designed specifically for me.
- Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) - The most daring, risky AAA game in years. The closest any video game has ever felt to D&D.
- Please, Touch The Artwork (2022) - I intuitively learned what makes a Mondrian a Mondrian by playing with some. Well worth my tiny time and money price of admission.
- Cobalt Core (2023) - Adorable idiot space kobolds pilot ramshackle rocketships through a time loop. Spirelike cards and space combat are like chocolate and peanut butter.
- Super Mario Wonder (2023) - I grew up alongside Mario games, including Mario 3, so it’s saying a lot that this now is my favorite of the lot.
Books
- Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories (2022) - A short story collection of Oops! All Outside Context Problems!
- Legends & Lattes (2022) - A very cozy story about an orcish woman retiring from adventuring to open a coffee shop in a fantasy society that has no concept of coffee shops.
- The Anthropocene Reviewed (2021) - Observations about the way the world is and used to be that are charmingly both deadpan absurd and earnest.
- Use of Weapons (1990) - Chronologically complicated SF that repeatedly drops you into a new world to figure out in medias res. Includes unbelievably forward-thinking ideas about AI and postmodernism that has me learning things about our current era.
Music
- Keygen Church — Hareklavit (2021) - Dark electronic organ? Yes please.
- Systemabsturz — Verdächtig (2021) - Catchy, incisive German EDM.
- Guilhem Desq — Break Your Crank (2015) - Quite possibly the best hurdy-gurdy music I’ve ever heard.
- Bo Burnham — Welcome to The Internet (2021) - CW: Internet. Super catchy.
- Ayria — Horrible Dream (2003) - Dark and lovely. It’s been stuck in my head quite a lot since first hearing it.
- Daisy the Great x AJR — Record Player (2021) - Light and lovely.
Video
- Across the Spider-Verse (2023) - The first movie set a new high bar for animation and this one managed to outdo it. Got me tearing up even the second time I saw it in theaters.
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) - They figured out what made TNG so appealing and do it again but better! Episodic starship anomaly-researching competence porn.
royal
The adjective royal meaning “pertaining to a king” is first attested in the late 1300s. It’s in use in English by the mid-1200s instead meaning “fit for a king”, and comes from the Old French “roial”. From 1066 through 1400, every ruler of England natively spoke Old French, so this is a natural borrowing. “Roial”, in turn, is descended from the Latin “rēgālis”, the adjective form of “rēx”, meaning “king”. That is likely descended from the reconstructed Proto-Italic “rēks” and the Proto-Indo-European “h₃rḗǵs”, which is the likely source for Sanskrit “राजन्” (rā́jan) and eventually Hindi “राजा” (rājā). The concept of a ruler is likely one of the most durable and unusually clear to trace through time.
Regal, a close cousin of royal, also entered English in the late 1300s, in this case directly from that Latin root “rēgālis”. Legal documents in England were all written in Latin at the time, so this seems like another natural borrowing. But wait, if a ruler is a very durable concept, shouldn’t English also have had an adjective meaning “kingly” already?
Kingly is amazingly also first attested in the late 1300s, but can be traced back through Old English variant spellings to “cyninglīċ” through to Proto-Germanic “kuningaz”, meaning “king”. It has cognates in the other Germanic langauges, such as German König, the namesake of the city containing the Seven Bridges of Königsberg (currently named Kaliningrad).
Royal, regal, and kingly make up one of English’s etymological triplets, three distinct words that mean similar things from similar origins. They are typically from Old English, Old French, and Latin, due to the way languages overlapped in 1300s England. Wikipedia has a good list if you’re hungry for more.