Did you ever mistype or miswrite either procede or precede? See, I did it. Proceed is the correct spelling. Who does that proud ale-driven inconsistency? Guess.
Notice the -ceed and -cede tail fragments? Or, to be formal, verb roots?
They are Latin in origin. Not just the fragments, the entire word, both.
Prior Latin
Latin
Procedere (go forward).
Praecedere (go before).
Verb root: cedere.
Norman French
Proceder.
Preceder.
Verb root: ceder.
Middle English
Procede.
Precede.
Verb root: cede.
Current English
Proceed.
Precede.
Verb root: oblivion.
Was that printer misaligned cartridge related issue — like that early American typewritter visual quirk — then everybody places punctuation and whatnots within... barn? ⬅️ This deserves one episode, or even an entire season of a thriller series.
❓ Typewritter
A device that lets you type letters by pressing keys to writ them directly onto paper.
Writ
💡 A form of written command in the name of a court or other legal authority to act, or abstain from acting, in some way. ✅
🤔 Dos it not man "mark (lttrs, words, or othr symbols) on a surfac"? ❓
Typewritter ❌
Typewriter ✅
Writter does not exist in English but written does exist. It is because writ stays within the pile of no one dared to sift through. Once we discover it, it will glow like an awkward rolling lightbulb of a... thing.
🤔 I suppose... but... there was no printer 🖨️ in 1400.
💡 Printer
📜 A person whose job or business is to produce books, newspapers, magazines (periodical publication — not the gun's chamber for bullets), etc., especially in large quantities. (Original meaning.) ✅
🖨️ A digitally-controlled mechanical contraption (1980s — boom of home and office printers) for writing text on paper that seldom makes user frantically shout "freedom" like in that particular film. ✅
Hm... there was printing press in 1476 brought by William Caxton to his shop in Westminster though.
Anyway, the justification for proceed (instead of procede) is as such:
- Certain verbs were later "tarted up" in spelling to match each other because they sounded similar when spoken: succeed (suck-SEED), proceed (pro-SEED), exceed (ex-SEED). Since the "seed" sound was strong across all of them, scribes regularised the spelling with double e's to make them look related.
- They wanted these "forward motion" sounding verbs to look consistent.
- So they crammed in the double e's in the verbs but left the nouns tidy.
- Without any care in the world about the root of each word because there was no internet and they did it in a tavern.
🙎♂️ By that a-ha logic, then precede should be preceed. Right?
No!
🙋♂️ Why?
Because it's English. We suck whatnots into our holy belly flushed with ale, ale! Another pint! Excuse me (🤢🤮 sound effect). Furthermore (wiping face),
because precede was too old and too well-established before those ale-addled printers and spelling tinkerers even started their hiccups.
🙋♂️ Aren't you also an ale-induced goblin?
How dare... axeuse me (🤢🤮 sound effect) (goblin morph glitch) (back to normal).
Anyway (wiping), precede (also precedent) was deeply sewn into legal documents, charters, monastic records, land grants, and all the tedious ink-splatters that medieval and early modern society depended on to avoid hitting each other with axes every five minutes.
Hence, the correct spelling for both are:
- Proceed ➡️ P-r-o-c-e-e-d.
- Precede ➡️ P-r-e-c-e-d-e.
🙋♂️ Says who?
Me, and the rest of English dictionaries ever manufactured.
🙋♂️ Manufactured?
It simply means not manicured by machinery.
🙍♂️ What?
(Kobold power ranger flailing movements.)
Press
🤔 Also, I just realised, the word press (WordPress? No, that's different), I always associated that to journalist — you know, press. Perhaps you might too.
But... when I dug proceed and precede shenanigans ➡️ entangled with printers (the people whose job are to print — not the device) ➡️ printing press 💥 Dear heavens... 🤦 It was from printing press, the contraption gigantus as I call it. Of course it was! Printing by pressing:
- A bloke inking the type with leather-covered balls — called "ink balls".
- Another bloke laying sheets carefully.
- And then a strong-armed lad working the lever and screwing down the plate to print. PRESS ⬅️
It's hilarious when the original meaning were used to refer to those people with cameras and microphones. Look at those biceps and forearms! That lady has some dark purple forehead tint, that is new. Makeup? And that guy... That guy is laying an egg on a sheet. Carefully.
That is one absurd reporting unit. The lady reporter is looking at somewhere, the cameraman is recording the back of her head, that guy is still carefully laying something 🤔 I guess they will edit it somehow.
Dark purple forehead tint. 😂
A Tale.
Dark Purple Forehead Tint
One day, a reporter awoke with a dark purple tint on her forehead and assumed it was a sign.
She stood facing away the camera, while her team aimed lights at the grass and filmed her left ear.
No one understood her message, but they nodded because the tint looked official.
And thus, many were led, not by truth, but by confident nonsense and a strange colour.
This is like when we rode an airplane, well, inside the airplane, and wonder, hm, the sun is level with me... and it looks like 🧐 it's... Oh well. 🤣
Noble digit (number) cannot be cheated. Unless we want the chair we're sitting on slanted, wonky, and not a chair. Which is fine to certain degree of tolerance. 😂
To honourable GOAT GOBLIN GOBBET.
They don't want precision aimed at them.
They want to be precision — not measured by it.
We turn the mirror, the resonance shifts.
Spectral Interference Chart, v1.2 — Annotated for Bonkerity.
A toast. 🍺
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