from wordwizard.com:


ORIENT: The noun ‘orient’ is derived from the Latin adjective ‘oriens,’ derived from the present participle (‘oriens,’ rising) of the verb ‘oriri’ (from which English also gets the word ‘origin’), ‘to rise or come forth.’ Its earliest English sense is ‘the place on the horizon where the sun rises when it is near one of the equinoxes,’ i.e. the direction of the rising sun, ‘the east.’ And thus it came to be used as it is today, most often capitalized, to refer to the Asian countries to the east of Europe. But to the Romans and back in the 14th century when this English sense of the word first came into use, the ‘the East’ meant just immediately east of the Mediterranean or of Southern Europe.

The word passed into English in the 14th century via Old French as the adjective and noun ‘orient.’ With the spread of Christianity into Europe it became customary to build churches with their longitudinal axes pointing eastward toward Jerusalem. This practice gave rise to the use of ‘orient’ as a verb (via the French ‘orienter,’ a derivative of the adjective ‘orient’— 1727-41) meaning ‘to cause to face or point toward the east,’ to turn east. It was then used by extension (1842) to mean ‘to place or adjust in any particular way with respect to the cardinal points or other defined data.’ And then, finally, in 1850 it came to be used figuratively to mean ‘to adjust, correct, or bring into defined relations, to known facts or principles; to put oneself in the right position or relation; to ascertain one's ‘bearings,’ find out ‘where one is.’”


Nowadays we say that maps are ‘oriented’ toward north, but it is interesting to note that before the widespread use of the magnetic compass enabled people to easily determine the direction of north, many European maps had east at the top, since the direction could be easily established by watching the sun rise, or on a cloudy days simply by noting the ‘orientation’ (mid-19th century) of the nearest church.

Watching a movie right now.

I have sleep issues.

They're related to some other health problems I'm trying to get fixed.

Now that I can't self-medicate, of course.

Not that I'm an actual alcoholic, but if I seriously COULD NOT drink, I dunno what I would do...probably end up in the woods somewhere in Maine with 1000 posts on message boards

You're all right. Let's find a black man and convince him he's a nigger.

Quit shitting on my thread. When you're all asian you can decide what offends asians or not.