The Origin of the Word Window

In a prehistoric and windy settlement, lived a community of prehistoric humans.

In that community everyone did their part, and each had a specific role. This story centres on The New Ideas, a sort of prehistoric inventor, of both objects and new concepts.

Years before, The New Ideas had created shelters, out of wood and large leaves. They were strong and safe, making good shields against the wind, and The New Ideas had been praised for his great idea.

It had been a while since The New Ideas had actually had a new idea, though, and some of the settlers said he was losing his touch.

Of course, some said he'd never had any touch to begin with, so it wasn't anything to be worried about. These were the people who thought the shelters still had one major flaw: They were too dark.

As you can imagine, The New Ideas didn't much appreciate all of this gossip. He set out to reclaim his respect.

The New Ideas knew that there was one sure way to bring back his respect. He had to bring the light into the shelters. To do this, he needed a new idea.

The New Ideas sat on a hill and thought. Eventually some New Ideas floated to him, but they required a bit of work.

First he tried to catch some light in his hands, and place it inside a shelter, but the light seemed to slip out of his hands whenever he got close to a shelter.

Then he wondered if his ideas on light and dark were wrong. Maybe it wasn't the light he could catch, maybe it was the darkness. The New Ideas tried to take the darkness out of the shelters.

The darkness wouldn't come, slipping away just as the light had, and The New Ideas started to get frustrated. He punched at the side of the hut, accidently forcing his fist right through. The light poured in from the fist-sized hole.

The New Ideas jumped up and down, excited at his discovery. He cut around the hole, making it look larger and more purposeful, then he rushed off to find The Leader.

The Leader regarded the hole with puzzlement, inspecting it closely. He looked to The New Ideas, with a questioning look.

"What about the wind?"

All The New Ideas could say in reply was "Oh," as the reason for the shelters in the first place had been to protect the people from the terrible winds. The New Ideas had had a bad idea.

From that day forth, the mysterious hole in the side of the shelter was known as the wind-oh, and when developed into written language, it became 'window.'

The New Ideas however, became something of a joke around the village, and was replaced with a younger man, known as Newer Ideas.