Let’s take stock…
It’s the last week of 2024, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for engaging with and supporting Words in Progress in 2024.
This space was created as an opportunity to explore and understand the words we use daily, and to see where they came from - tracking them from their origins to the present day.
It is fair to say I have understood that words are, in fact, immigrants themselves, and have evolved themselves over time in a way that transcends manmade borders.
This year has given me a better understanding of how interconnected we are in the world too.
And in that, when put into perspective, the idea of movement is constant, and stagnation is a myth.
It is right to take stock as you’re coming to the end of a project.
Each year is a project too.
If you choose to see it that way.
‘Stock’ has a fascinating etymology.
We see its origin from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root (s)teu- or sta-.
(S)teu- means to ‘push’, ‘stick’, ‘knock’ or ‘beat’. However some linguists think the word stems from the PIE root sta-, meaning "to stand, make or be firm," emphasising stability or a foundation.
From the PIE root, the word evolved into the Proto-Germanic word stukkaz, meaning "tree trunk" or "wooden post", which gives the feeling of a sturdy object.
The word further evolved into the Old English term stocc meaning, ‘stump, wooden post, stake, trunk of a living tree, or log’.
It retained its core meaning in Middle English but was spelt stok and expanded it meaning metaphorically to ancestry (family stock), and a word to describe things like tools and weapons.
In our Modern English use, we see four main types of meaning to the word stock: ancestry, to mean lineage and descent; supply, to mean a reserve or inventory for future use; finance, to mean corporate capital and in cooking denoting a broth by boiling meat.
2024 will be known for the shift in mentality for me personally.
I’ve gone from dealing with a hiatus to project building and experimenting.
I look towards 2025 with some goals in skeleton form, especially with this space and look forward to sharing even more learnings as I explore more words.
But for now wrapping up the year and taking stock of this year are the needs of the hour.
I hope you’re able to take some time over the next few days to do the same.