After writing yesterday, I was eager to continue after having been quite sporadic in my output lately, and was all set to write something really interesting this evening.

But, as it’s been delightfully warm (24°!) and sunny (see above) today, I decided spending some time in the fresh air reading would be be an agreeable way to pass the evening. And reading is perhaps the greatest aid to good writing, so it would serve the overall aim of improving my writing.

But I couldn’t stay out all night, so I’m back now, and writing a few words about the word I keep thinking about: sunny.

It struck me that it must have the same construction as funny: noun + -y. Sun + -y (and an N to keep the sound alright) = sunny, meaning characterised by or full of sun.

This got me thinking again about other words which might follow this pattern. Happy, perhaps? Except, what’s hap?

Nothing now, but in the 13th century it meant luck, fortune, or fate. Happy then developed from this to mean lucky or fortunate. Note how we still describe something as a happy coincidence, and refer to happenstance. And someone without luck is hapless. In fact, the verb to happen also comes from hap. Happy acquired it’s more general meaning of glad around the late 14th century.

That’s it really, as while I’m quite happy that it’s been sunny lately, I’m really not used to it and am quite tired. Till tomorrow!