fand, v: give it a go
- / effortless trying
- (for one-page site, could make it not look like I made it, so it seems to have more cred)
3 linked references
November 26th, 2025
- It's somewhere between the idea of attempting something in a low-effort way and attempting something. It's not a suggestion about your level of skill. It's just like thinking about the phrase "give it a go."
- Can you do a handstand? Like a non-attachment. Yeah, it would be cool if it succeeded, but it's got this non-attached, non-effortist, maybe not even quite the word "forcing," constricting, grasping. Like there's a kind of sticky thing. There's a kind of like, "yeah, that's like," or um, "I don't know." Like, "oh the site's down," can you get it working? It's like, "sure, I'll fan right?" It's not saying like I'll really strive to get it working, but like I'll poke at it, I'll find out whether I can get it working. We'll discover. Yeah, right? Like, there'll be some amount of attempt that will discover something, but I'm like, I'm not committed to it.
- We have phrases for this, but they're all kind of long. And like, the word "try" is very short. You know what you know what I mean? Like, so I don't know, trying to find a word. Yeah, yeah, I'm finding it right be fit like right now. I'm finding explaining the word to you well okay, fair. But I don't think it'd be wrong to say like I'm giving a go at explaining the word to you. Yeah, like you know what? I mean like, insofar as those are attempted to be literally synonyms. Yeah, well no, but then we're back to a long phrase again.
October 20th, 2025
- it's "try" without the effort/commitment
- = "give it a go"
- fake etymology:
- = "F(uckaround)AND"
- actual etymology: middle english!
- “to try, attempt, tempt, test, examine, explore, search out, seek to know, experience, visit”
- "seek to know"! so good
- technically a relogism, not a neologism: it's a word from middle english!
- revival / archaeological neologism
- (private claude chat where I was ideating)
- (huh, "fend" "find" "fund" (all infinitive verbs) & "fond"/"fawned" (different a la cot/caught!) "fiend", "finned", "found", "feigned", "phoned"... massive minimal set!)
- beet, bit, bait, bet, bat, bite, bot, bought, boat, but, boot, bout
- re grammar: "I'll fand eating it" vs "I'll fand to eat it"
- me:
- huh, "try" has this property where it composes with other words
- "I'm gonna try eating this" -> "I'm gonna fand eating this"
- "I'm gonna fand going for a walk"
- is this a special thing in english grammar, or do all verbs technically have this option they just don't make much sense
- claude
- This is a really interesting grammatical question! Let me think through it...
- "Try" takes a gerund or infinitive complement:
- "try eating this" / "try to eat this"
- "fand eating this" / "fand to eat this" (?)
- Not all verbs can do this. Compare:
- "I enjoy eating" ✓ but "I enjoy to eat" ✗
- "I want to eat" ✓ but "I want eating" ✗
- "I like eating/to eat" ✓ (both work!)
- The verbs that take these complements are often:
- Aspectual: start, stop, finish, continue + gerund
- Modal-ish: want, need, hope + infinitive
- Attitude/attempt: try, like, love, hate + both
- Perception: see, watch, hear + bare infinitive or gerund
- "Try" is in a special class of verbs that can take both forms, and there's actually a semantic difference:
- "try eating vegetables" = experiment with vegetable-eating as a practice
- "try to eat vegetables" = make an effort to eat vegetables
- For "fand" to work naturally, it should probably pattern like "try" - taking both gerunds and infinitives.
- "I'll fand eating it" - explore the experience
"I'll fand to fix it" - hmm, this feels slightly less natural? - Maybe "fand" works best with gerunds, since it's more about experiencing the doing than attempting toward a goal?
- M
- that does feel right! and gets at some of the existing range in "try"'s connotations.
- maybe makes sense to start there. but it would also be cool connote the towardsness and purposefulness of "I'll fand to fix it" without any of the effort!
- Claude
- Yes! That's a really nice distinction to tease out:
- "I'll fand eating it" - exploratory experience, see how it goes
"I'll fand to fix it" - I have a goal/direction, but I'm not promising effort or success - The second one captures something like "I'll point myself at fixing it and see what happens" - there's intentionality and direction, but not striving.
- This is actually a subtle thing "try" does that gets muddled:
- "I'll try eating healthier" (experiment/explore)
- "I'll try to fix it" (effort toward goal)
- But also sometimes: "I'll try to fix it" (casual, like "I'll take a crack at it")
- If "fand" could cleanly take both forms:
- fand + gerund = exploratory engagement
- fand + infinitive = goal-directed but non-effortful attempt
- That would be incredibly useful! It separates:
- The experiential vs purposeful axis
- While keeping both firmly in the "no promises about effort" zone
- So "I'll fand to fix it" means: "I have the goal of fixing it in mind, I'll point myself at it, we'll see what happens" - purposeful but not straining.
- Does that capture what you want?