Blogathon, Day 23: If I Started Blogging Today, I Would...

It's time for the second Theme Post Day in Blogathon. Today, we blogathonists are encouraged to finish the phrase "If I started blogging today I would..."

Now then, let's see.

If I started blogging today I would...

- read books and blogs about blogging before I start my own weblog. Now there is so much more information available about blogging than it was back in 2004 when I started my first blog. It's really easy for a newbie to get good advice and not to make stupid mistakes (even though stupid mistakes can be very useful).

- just start. If you want to try something, so go ahead and try it. You can't lose anything by starting a blog. If it isn't for you, you can stop whenever you want.

- try Wordpress instead of Blogger. Maybe not to start with but later at some point. I've always used Blogger and I have just been too lazy to try other options. As an eager user of Gmail, Blogger just somehow fits my needs.

- make a plan how to get a picture for every single post of mine.

- not be so terribly ashamed of what other people think of my writings. Posts don't need to be perfect. You can take your time, try different ways of writing and learn. Later, there may be some really good posts but not every post can be a work of Shakespeare.


The photo of today comes from a newbie writer (and maybe a-blogger-to-be). My son, 4 years, wrote his first children's book, as he said himself.

I must say that Disney/Pixar has done their product placement well - look at the first words of his book :)

Blogathon, Day 16: First Etymological Dictionary Of Estonian Published

This day is a big day for Estonian linguistics. The first major etymological dictionary of Estonian language was published today. According to the news, the history of Estonian words includes 6 643 word entries. It took nine years to make the dictionary. Big, big hand for the job well done! 

Etymology is definitely my favorite among linguistics. It combines so many aspects of human life. History of words tells us history of ourselves. A tiny little word can have an amazingly interesting story to tell. 

Some parts of linguistics can be pretty hard to explain for a man on the street. But ta-dah: start to talk about etymology of a word and you immediately get interested looks and people want to find out more. Etymology is hard core linguistics in a public-friendly form. 

Let's take an example. 

The Finnish word for tulip is tulppaani. It has come to Finnish language from Swedish tulpan. Swedish has got its word from Dutch tulpaan. 

The Dutchmen started to grow tulips in the 17th century. Because of their powerful flower business the Dutch word found its way to many European languages. In written Finnish language tulppaani has been used for the first time in 1773. 

Aren't these kind of pieces of information just awesome! (I found the info about tulppaani in The Etymological Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish by professor Kaisa Häkkinen). 

I had a great morning visiting the Tallinn TV Tower. I'll tell more about it later. The tulips were blooming in front of the tower entrance and they were begging me to take pictures of them. Spring has reached its most beautiful point here in Estonia.