Words do funny things through history. In Rome, the people didn't mind talking about movement and maneuvering, using the word
plicare. It was an action. The action form, verb form, was retained in the languages that derived from Latin after the Roman Empire died out. One version of the word, in French, had quite an influence in England where the American version of English derived. So, when the French during the early Middle Ages wanted to speak of movement and maneuvering, they didn't mind using their derived action word
ployer (modern
plier). The British turned the French word into two words because speakers of English dialects heard the word differently. In the north, Scotland, people used ploy as an action and combined it with prepositions
em- and
de-. The British in the south, London and Sussex, pronounced the word a little differently,
ply. But, Londoners spoke the prestige version of English, so modern English adopted this form of the word when needing a word for maneuvering something if they meant to shape it. Those hillbilly Scots didn't know anything, of course. So, their usage of
ploy was stripped of its action. It was left in the language, but only as a noun.
It's strange to see words move around in the history of language. People too often think that the language they have learned is static. And for the most part it is - during our lifetimes. But, history teaches that the language we speak is dynamic. I don't know what will happen to
ploy in the future. It could be that the word will drop from the language altogether in favor of
maneuver, shape, or bend. It could be that it will be stripped of its priority status over
ply and be reduced to a noun. Then, it would compete for survival with
ply. It could be that a new pronunciation of the words will merge the two words by pronouncing them both the same. If so, the spelling might be changed to reflect that new pronunciation. Then both words would become one, maybe
plee. And, if writing were to disappear,
plee would survive in spoken form only, captured, of course, by video and holograph of people speaking it in speeches, movies, and music.
Both the current forms,
ply and
ploy, don't resemble the original Latin word
plicare much, nor would any future derivative
. But, following the history of the word makes the changes plausible and traceable. My own life resembles this word's history so much. I began with a certain form, but as life has happened, changes took place and for good reasons, much like the influence of the prestige of Latin on French, French on London English, less influence on Scotland, and London and Scotland on America. My latest form doesn't resemble much the original form, I know. But it's OK; it's to be expected; it's the natural order. And, I am looking forward so much to the catalyst that will change both
ploy and
ply to
plee, making my journey complete.
I love the term Language Behavior. I never knew the term until I was about 30. I had never really thought in terms of language having behavior. It's a personification, however, that has a lot of meaning. Language does behave a certain way because of all the patterns in it. Patterns show up in language in nearly every linguistic area. Grammatically, patterns fill the language books, such as the regularization of verbs. Prosodically, patterns fill our tones and melodies, such as the way questions are intoned. Semantically, patterns can be seen in ways that signal what a listener would expect if sentences are said a certain way, such as the use of a stock phrase, a dialectal phrase, or a borrowed phrase from another language. There are many patterns language fits into.
Facades are great because people use them to present what they want people to see. They can decorate them and make them beautiful to gaze at. Facades have something very different behind them than what they represent on the front of them. Movies use facades often. They can create, for example, a whole main street of a western town - a general store, a saloon, a hotel, a bank, a jail, a blacksmith shop, and a doctor's office. But if you were to go through the front door of these facades, you would see nothing of what you would expect. Go in the door to the jail, expecting to see a cell, and you see nothing but dirt. It's a facade. Go in the door to the general store, and you don't see rows of things to buy. You see dirt or mountains or desert or whatever is behind the facade. Go through any of the facade doors and you know that nothing is behind the front of the building. It's just a store front.
When I was growing up, I never heard of what is going to be happening tomorrow. The phenomenon had not been discovered yet. As a young adult, I heard of the discovery because NASA had begun watching the sun. Just 5 years ago, I had heard of this recently discovered happening and seen a few catastrophic scenarios of the sun's hyperactivity during one of its anniversaries in an 11-year activity cycle, but it was not within my daily experience. 
When a person learns the vocabulary of a language, (s)he learns that words fit into grammatical categories that start with a root and subsequently use suffixes to represent grammatical categories. These categories using the same root are often referred to as word families. An example of this is found in the root beau-. This root yields the verb beautify, the noun beauty, the adjective beautiful, and the adverb beautifully. A great number of words follow this model.
Words do funny things through history. In Rome, the people didn't mind talking about movement and maneuvering, using the word plicare. It was an action. The action form, verb form, was retained in the languages that derived from Latin after the Roman Empire died out. One version of the word, in French, had quite an influence in England where the American version of English derived. So, when the French during the early Middle Ages wanted to speak of movement and maneuvering, they didn't mind using their derived action word ployer (modern plier). The British turned the French word into two words because speakers of English dialects heard the word differently. In the north, Scotland, people used ploy as an action and combined it with prepositions em- and de-. The British in the south, London and Sussex, pronounced the word a little differently, ply. But, Londoners spoke the prestige version of English, so modern English adopted this form of the word when needing a word for maneuvering something if they meant to shape it. Those hillbilly Scots didn't know anything, of course. So, their usage of ploy was stripped of its action. It was left in the language, but only as a noun.
Years have different characters to them. 2010 was a year of taking three steps forward and two steps backward. There was a net gain perhaps, but at what cost! 2011 was a year of learning to be content with what life dealt out of its hand and trying to make sense of its events. I look at it and tell people it was all right, but there was something missing. 2012 is hidden right now. 
