I AM SO AMAZINGLY GOOD! I had to do a crazy dance around the house before I could even sit down at my desk long enough to write a blog entry! I am so proud of my etymological researching skills right now I could explode.

I got an email this morning from a teacher thanking me for my efforts on WIAN, saying that she frequently references my website when teaching her class, and offering a suggestion for "Hedwig" her students came up with. This motivated me to get back to work and try to get a lot more headway in the updating of WIAN before getting back to school.

So for the last hour, I've been trying to figure out where the Phineas came from in Phineas Nigellus, Sirius Black's great-great-grandfather. I looked into at least six different Phineases (Phineai?) from history, literature, and myth, before randomly considering the similar "Phinehas," which I learned was an ancient Egyptian word for a black person. I AM SO GOOD.

I think this is the proudest I've ever been of myself etymology-wise. The closest I can think of to being this WIAN-happy is when I read The Akashic Record's take on "auror," which had been bugging me for ages. But this was a seemingly impossible name I figured out on my own, and I am therefore fabulous! MAN today is a good day. TheFreeDictionary.com is my new love affair.

Edit: Oops, I lied. Phinehas was the name of a person whose name derived from "black person" in Egyptian. Close enough. But he was the son of a high priest, and found guilty of "irreverence in doing his priestly duties." Somehow that phrase makes me laugh a lot.