Boungie-boungie…
I’ve long been fascinated by the word “incessant”; I’ve known of it’s usage in terms of something ‘continual’ and ‘constant(ly unending)’, generally ‘annoying’, as in “the buzzing of flies was incessant”. However, I also have long wondered why it means that.
Well get this! So the word “incessant” is, stripping away the common negating prefix “in”, at it’s heart the simple “-cessant”, drawing the mind to the related (real) word “cessate”, which means to ‘stop’, itself coming from/related to the word “cease” (also, unsurprisingly, meaning to ‘stop’ or ‘end’ something, as in “he ceased to be a bother”). Thusly I come to the quite simple conclusion that to be “incessant” quite literally means (as opposed to my dunderheaded attempts at definition above), “to be without cessation/ceasing”, or “stopping”. i.e. “the buzzing of flies was not/never cessating/ceasing/stopping”.
Now if only I could make posts on this blog incessantly… :P
Pointing at the elephant *incessantly* won’t win you any brownie points, Cassandra.
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So tell me; what do you think about ‘incessantly’ (answer whichever way makes your cap curl)? Do you agree with my reduction? What’s a word you have ‘discovered’ recently?
Our Method. Our Madness. 