That was not what I meant. (D)

Another group of words where the use has changed over the years. It still happens, for example 'smart' is more often used as a synonym for 'clever' rather than 'soreness'.

Danger, in thirteenth century England, this word referred to 'dominion, power of the master'. Later uses included 'difficult to deal with' and reluctant to comply' before the modern sense of 'liable to cause injury' came about from the fourteenth century.

Demise today is associated with death, yet in the sixteenth century it was a legal term meaning 'transfer of an estate'.

Devious is today used to describe someone who is less than trustworthy. Historically, it was used to mean 'out of the way' or perhaps 'remote', Then, from the sixteenth century, it came to be used in the sense of 'straying' or even 'erring'.

Dial is probably one of the easiest words in this list to understand, today referring to a clockface (archaically also used for tuning a radio), but in antiquity it was used for what we would today call a 'sundial'. Interesting to note that in the push button age, we still 'dial' a telephone number even though the dial is long defunct.

Disaster is from the Greek and means 'bad star', which was the original English usage, too.

Disease, like the previous word, features the prefix 'dis' as in 'bad' or 'ill'. Indeed, the latter is exactly how it was used at first in English, to be 'ill at ease', which is just how you might feel if you had a disease today.

Dismal might be a synonym for 'dreary' today, but when first used in English was, just as in the original Latin, 'bad days'.

Dissolve might refer to anything being soluble today (although one can also dissolve into tears), but historically was used to mean 'release from life'.

Divan has evolved to refer to a couch or more often a bed, but began as something quite different in 'a book of accounts'.

Doodle began in the seventeenth century, when it did not mean 'to draw absentmindedly' but described a 'fool' or 'simpleton'. It is derived from the Low German dudeltopf.

Drab may not be complimentary when it comes to clothing, but it did begin as a word referring to cloth, coming to English from the French drap.

Dutch describes anyone or anything from the Netherlands (also known as Holland), but began as an error in fourteenth century English when they were describing Netherlanders as Deutsch or 'German'.

Dwell now means 'reside, live', but was originally used in English to mean 'to go astray', almost the reverse.

Motivational Tricks of the Writing Greats

Often asked how I manage to keep myself motivated and stuck at the desk to write, I was reminded of the episode of There's No Such Thing As A Fish, the podcast by the QI Elves (and much funnier than QI itself), where they discussed the weird ways authors of yesteryear kept themselves at the desk. I recall one Victor Hugo who only ever wrote in the mornings, often spending the afternoons riding around on buses to ensure he wasn't tempted to return to his desk and write. And if that wasn't enough when set a deadline to write The Hunchback of Notre Dame inside five months, he bought a large bottle of ink then put himself under house arrest by having all his clothes removed save for a large grey shawl knitted specially for the purpose of keeping him warm. History records these tactics worked as he finished weeks ahead of schedule.

Another shaved off just one side of his hair.

James Joyce wrote lying on his stomach in bed using a large blue pencil, wearing a white coat. Much of Finnegans Wake was written in said blue on pieces of cardboard. In truth he was nearly blind, having had severe eye problems as a child and rheumatic fever at the age of 25. He underwent more than two dozen operations on his eyes, none of which helped in the slightest.

Virginia Woolf is held to have always written standing up, purchasing a desk with a sloping top and standing 3.1/2 feet high for this very purpose. Not that it was any help to her writing, this was simply so she could write standing up, just as a sister Vanessa Bell painted standing up (hardly the same thing).

Friedrich Schiller could never write unless his olfactory senses were assailed by the smell from a drawer full of rotten apples.

Eudora Welty edited by an early form of cut and paste - cut with scissors and pin the new write in its place.

Vladimir Nabokov, for reasons best known to him, had to keep his feet wet when writing.

John Steinbeck always wrote in pencil, insisting upon twelve perfectly sharpened pencils on his desk before starting work. Working with traditional hexagonal pencils created calluses on his hands, hence his editor kept him supplied with round pencils to alleviate the problem and maintain his productivity.

Truman Capote never started or finished anything on a Friday, never stayed in a hotel room where the telephone number involved '13', and by tucking any surplus into his pocket ensured no more than three cigarette ends in the ashtray.

Edgar Allen Poe balanced a cat on his shoulder while writing.

Further details can be found in the very funny Odd Type Writers: From Joyce and Dickens to Wharton and Welty, the Obsessive Habits and Quirky Techniques of Great Authors by Celia Blue Johnson.