#WritersCoffeeClub May 1 - International Workers Day. Which writer’s work blazed the trail for what you write today?
I read The Lord of the Rings and Ivanhoe over and over as a teen, and learned a love of coherent, linguistically-informed worlds and entertaining historical fiction from these books. Ursula K. Le Guin was a huge influence because she wrote about ordinary people, focusing on their world and societies while telling women's, queer people's, and marginalized people's stories.
Etymological aside: I wonder how many people assume, like I did, that "trailblaze" means burning a path where there was none, when it actually means putting marks on trees or a path for others to follow? https://www.etymonline.com/word/trailblazer Trailblazing in its original meaning is not a destructive or disruptive process, but a communal and communicative one for those who went before to signal a way for others to follow, if they wish. #Etymology
@ljwrites i happen to be from the bit of the world where hiking trails are still blazed & the marking referred to as blazes which makes the etymology a bit more intuitive to figure out. But from what I’ve gathered your assumption is the more common reading.
Interestingly though, Blazes on trees are etymologically cousins with blazing fires! The meaning of “light colored marking” was a borrowing from dutch or german, and it comes from the same proto-germanic root meaning “torch” (one can see how one half of the tree would focus on how torches light the way and the other half on the fact that its *fire* providing the light).
@Satsuma oh, so the homonym is no coincidence! TIL.