If you're like me and are are back to work for the first time in a week and a half, you might be having a little trouble focusing. So here's some etymology to distract you.
"Work" comes from the Proto-Germanic *werka, which in turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom.
In Ancient Greek, *wérǵom gave rise to ergon, which gives us "energy", from en 'at' + erg 'work' ('at work, active') and terms like "ergonomics" and "ergative".
It also apparently gives us the name George, a name meaning 'farmer' or 'husbandman', which comes from ge 'earth' + ergon 'work'.
A variant of ergon also produced organon, meaning 'instrument' or 'tool, which gives us a whole bunch of words with "org" in them, like "organ" (both the instrument and the body parts)
It also gave us "orgy", which originally meant 'secret rites'. From the Online Etymology Dictionary: "OED says of the ancient rites that they were 'celebrated with extravagant dancing, singing, drinking, etc.,' which gives 'etc.' quite a workout."
Forms of ergon or organ also gave us "surgery" (from earlier "chirurgerie" 'hand work'), "metallurgy", "argon" ('not working'), "lethargy" ('not working through forgetfulness'), "allergy" ('strange working'), "liturgy" ('public work'), "thaumaturge" ('wonder-worker'), . . .
"dramaturge" ('drama-worker'), "demiurge" ('public worker'), and "synergy" ('working together').
The PIE *wérǵom also yielded the Germanic "bulwark" (literally 'bole work' or 'tree work'), which was borrowed into French and became "boulevard", with an anomalous change from /k/ to /d/ at the end.
And, of course, it also yields the English "wright", meaning 'worker' or 'maker', and the archaic 'wrought', which is an old past-tense form of "work" and not a past-tense form of "wreak" as some mistakenly believe.
So that one little root from Proto-Indo-European has been pretty productive. I should probably try to be too.
Of course I JUST noticed the repeated word in this tweet. *sigh*
