Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 46 seconds

connected courses, Just for fun

#remixthediss – playing with Susan and Laura’s writing for #dailyconnect

October 13, 2014
Maha Bali

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 46 seconds

(This post is part of today’s #ccourses #dailyconnect – in it, I don’t borrow the full writing style but an idea I saw on the blogs of two wonderful #ccourses bloggers and friends: Susan Watson and slightly also Laura Gibbs -links go to the inspiring blogposts, except i can’t find Laura’s – Laura, where is it? P.S. was too lazy to color the text the way Susan does)

A conversation with nobody in particular got me thinking of playing around with the word “dissertation”, something I have always wanted to do, because, you know, what could be more interesting than playing around with words? So I have been playing games in my head thinking to prepare for this post. I wondered if I was good enough could do it quickly… So this is a probably not very good attempt at hacking Susan and Laura’s voices, but it’s too superficial to be hacking their voice, it’s nothing but just hacking their idea of playing with word definitions and stuff.

dissertation (noun, google definition):

a long essay on a particular subject, especially one written for a university degree or diploma.
“a dissertation on the novels of the Brontë sisters”
synonyms: essay, thesis, treatise, paper, study, composition, discourse, disquisition, tract, monograph; More

dissert(from Merriam Webster dictionary):

Definition of DISSERT
intransitive verb
: to speak or write at length
Origin of DISSERT

Latin dissertus, past participle of disserere, from dis- + serere to join, arrange — more at series
First Known Use: 1657

[Maha’s voice: write at length… Riiiiiiight, coz that’s the most important thing about a dissertation, the writing at length; makes the whole thing seem silly, if you ask me]

dessert(noun) yummy sweet things we eat that if we’re lucky come by the dozen 😉

desert(verb): to leave alone…; (noun): land that is full of sand

Or it could have gone another way…

dissertation

diss/dis (informal): to speak disrespectfully or criticize

But we use “dis”in the sense of
dis-respect/
dis-mantle/
dissect?
dissent/
disconnect/
disturb/
disrupt/

Hmm ‘dis’ ‘sert’ (to not assert??? To take assertion apart?)

This is all in fun 😉 and also inspired by the #remixthediss event

12 thoughts on “#remixthediss – playing with Susan and Laura’s writing for #dailyconnect”

  1. Oh oh oh, this is so much fun: I like the idea of having a dissertation for dessert nom nom nom, ha ha.
    In terms of the Latin, a common meaning of the uncompounded noun sertum, the participle of sero (meaning “to arrange, interweave” esp. to arrange in an elegant way) is a FLOWER ARRANGEMENT, a garland of flowers! Latin serta means “(flower) arrangement, a garland, a crown of flowers,” etc.
    So if you are riffing on dissertation, you can have dessert AND flowers.

    And with assert you are tapping into an INCREDIBLY weird and powerful aspect of Roman society because it was absolutely a slave society. To be “asserted” meant to be asserted, inserted, arranged in a social sense, i.e. to be a slave in someone’s household or, if you were lucky, to be declared to be free. And the “assertor” was the legal official who could pronounce someone’s assertion, whether they were slave or free! Check out the fascinating dictionary entry here:
    http://athirdway.com/glossa/?s=assertor
    ASSERTOR: one who formally asserts that another is free or a slave.
    I. A restorer of liberty. Figuratively, a defender, protector, deliverer, advocate
    II. He who claims or declares one to be a slave

    The original meaning of Latin assertio (our “assertion”) was “a formal declaration that one is a freeman or a slave”
    http://athirdway.com/glossa/?s=assertio

    If you poke hard enough at pretty much any Latin word, you will find either money or slaves or both.

    Reply

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