www.alphadictionary.com

Stof is the dutch word for dust, as in "stof thou art, to stof thou shalt returneth". Of course it sounds like stuff, and I wonder if that is where we got our word. I read the other day that a high percentage of the dust found in houses is human cells. that leads me to reconsider the quote above in another more immediate way than that which I held previously. That "dust" seemed a time in the future.

It also made me think about George Carlin, and his rant on stuff. perhaps we are our stuff, we just never knew quite how closely related.


any one else?

We are all flaky?

Knew a fellow who had an elderly uncle. The uncle had an overwhelming case of psoriasis. The fellow took it upon himself to help the uncle-- checking on him, bringing food and medicines, and finally (because no one else would do it) cleaning house for him. The uncle said he'd leave him the house in gratitude.
After many months, the uncle was very sick, bed bound and losing his grasp on whom he was speaking to. He told the fellow that he had drafted a new will, leaving everything to the local pet shelter.

The fellow heard this with utter disbelief, then growing anger.
He tried to hold his anger in check, lost the battle and as he headed for the door, he screamed over his shoulder, "Uncle
Josias, FLAKE OFF!!"

Wow, damoge, are you going into competition with Grogie? This one's right up there with some of his best of the arcane. Wherever do you find them?

I dabbled a bit, and it appears both stof and stuff come from Proto-Germanic, but I couldn't decipher whether or not the roots were intertwined.

It's difficult, at least for me, to find Danish etymology in English. I kept getting served the roots of the pastry.

am madly in love with Dutch language. So much easier on the ear than the neighbor next door, and in some places, it sounds like someone speaking english pretending it is a foreign language.
I used to spend a lot of time in Belgium. The two major official languages are french and flemish. Squeeze them together and you get english.

visiting there is just one long head game. The fun part is finding out what some of our words originally meant, and trying to figure out how they got twisted around to the meanings they have now, but then, you all know that already. That's the joy of etymology, the joy of language.

Stoff in German means material, what something is made of. Kohlenstoff means carbon.