etymology

I love learning the history of words.
I love the word 'vapid.'
'Vapidity' is, in fact, a real word, not just one I made up.
'Vapid' probably comes (according to dictionary.com) from latin roots related to stale wine. It's accepted meaning, these-a-days, is 'without liveliness or spirit; insignificant.'
Princeton's WordNet 3.0 gives this contextualized use of the word: 'a bunch of vapid schoolgirls.'
My blog has been feeling a bit vapid lately.
Thoreau says, 'Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering?'
You'd think, after a perfectly good day like today, that I'd have something to stay, something of substance.
Instead, mere vapidity: that of no significance, the essence of flat wine.
Our man Henry also says, 'We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.'
Travis Tritt says, 'It's a great day to be alive. / I know the sun's still shinin' when I close my eyes.'
Good night. I hope we all dream of sunrise.