A Friend in West Virginia, Part Twelve

My friend spent much time emailing me some days, even when he was at work, and who knows how many others he may have been emailing from work also. As already noted about his mother, he said how nasty she was, but I began to wonder if HE was the nasty one, and that maybe he'd been pampered a bit much in his life, and once he told me he had just insulted a friend or two who had simply wanted to see how he was doing, during one of the bouts of illness I also mentioned in an earlier segment ("perhaps" the illnesses were brought on, made worse, by anxiety?). Maybe the friends need to tell him to shut the hell up and to take charge of his problems, instead of blaming others.

WORD HISTORY:
Cringe-This word, related to "crank," "cranky" and "crinkle," and meaning, "to bend one's body in fear of something," goes back to Indo European "grengh," which had the notion of "to bend, to wind ("long "i")." This gave Old Germanic "krinkhanan," "to twist and turn, to crumple and fall (usually in battle)." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "cringan," meaning, "to fall in battle, to yield/retreat (that is, "turn back"). This then became "crinchen," before the modern form. There are many forms in other Germanic languages related to "cringe," but they are more closely related to other such form in English, but German has "Kring(e)," meaning, "a ring, a circle (something bent to the shape of)."