This podcast is by a virgo but it is not a disaster

I must apologize for an oversight in my January 24th podcast. Fortunately Amy of blog.contentious.com pointed it out to me. It is pun or play on words. In Contentious Amy writes mainly about issues of content and communication. Hence, her own neologism: contentious meaning full of or related to content. I feel pretty foolish that I didn't spot that one.

Also, I wanted to mention Amy is podcasting from Boulder, Colorado, my hometown. Which I think is home to several other podcasters:

• Me
• Brian of Coverville.com
• Brandon Fuller (Last podcast was in December)

Today's word is totally unrelated. It is a word we all know and despise but its etymology is very interesting. The word is disaster. A noun meaning a total failure or a catastrophe.

Now the etymology was pointed out to me by one of my favorite authors Neal Stephenson. He mentions the etymology in the book Snow Crash. Disaster could almost be literal translated from the latin or greek as bad star. The dis- part can mean wrong or not as in disease or disappear. And the -aster part means star as in astronaut, aster (the flower) or more appropriate for today's word astrology- the "study" of the stars. I presume this word has migrated over the centuries from "bad sign" or "bad luck" to its current definition.