Emily Lofton's English Blog 2018

So, I've been on a bit of a kick. Since my last article, I'd been thinking I would do at least one more entry about the Vikings. Originally I had been planning on doing an entry about old Norse slander laws, or the Viking's concepts of witchcraft and Ergi. However,it would take a while to read, process and paraphrase all that info-provided I could find a credible source, and I'm not trying to write a history paper. Anyway, as I was settling myself in for a slog through other people's history papers, I found something a bit more interesting. After scrolling past a few links clearly aimed more toward tattoo artists than language students, a link caught my eye. Clicking it took me to a familiar blog site, one I've come across many times in my searches for random tidbits of knowledge. Ancient Origins is a blog as fascinating as it is diverse (which is very.)Even after running across it so many times, I still don't know exactly what its focus is. This time...

Quick, what's the first thing that comes to mind when I say "Krypton?" Chances are, your mind immediately leapt to the defunct home-planet/mortal weakness and Achilles heel of one Kal-el, more popularly known as Superman. If I asked you a hundred years ago, your answer would be very different. In 1898, the element Krypton made it's debut, courtesy of one Sir William Ramsay and his colleague Morris Travers. The name was originally taken from the Greek "kryptos" meaning "hidden." But jump ahead to around 1935, when Superman as we know him today was still in his infancy, and you'd find the word being used more frequently (outside scientific circles, at least,) to refer to Kal's home world, and the fictional, radioactive fallout from its destruction that has entered popular culture as Clark Kent's Kryptonite. Yet again,you may find yourself asking "what the dickens has this got to do with anything?" A lot,  actu...