Understanding and Overstanding in Writing

Every word is weird and made up at first.

“Understand” is a fucking weird word in modern English. Taken literally, it seems to mean that you’re standing underneath of something—while actually it means that you ‘comprehend’ something (usually). Apparently the ‘under’ in understand may have derived from an older word that meant ‘among’ or ‘between,’ meaning that ‘understand’ much more understanda…