2425: Cakes and Existing: wastel, victual, & gâteau Aug 11, 2021

The French cake 'gâteau' and the far more obscure English word 'wastel' also meaning 'cake' both happen then to be from a root meaning 'to be'. This relation between pastries and existing did not originate with desserts, but with the idea of sustenance. It was in this sense of general food that came out of the Proto-Indo-European *wes- (to be). In the interim period as well, the Old English 'wist' (to exist) and Latin 'victus' hence English 'victual' meaning 'food; sustenance' related also to 'vital' show that this process was not taken exactly at the same time around the world.

1225: Stative versus Dynamic 'be' Apr 17, 2018

There are many forms of the verb 'to be', but there are just about as many uses too, including the equatorial 'be',  the 'be' for locative predications, the habitual 'be' to name a few, but none of those relate to psychology as much as the dynamic (and its opposite: stative) 'be'. Of the latter two, both of them relate to predicate adjectives, but in different ways. The dynamic 'be' is used for adjectives that can—semantically—be thought of as impermanent qualities, such as 'humorous', 'sarcastic', or 'angry', whereas stative adjectives describe (you guessed it) the state of something, such as 'tall', 'stone' or, debatably, 'intelligent'. In both cases, the sentence can be phrased as "subject is (adjective)" as in 'the comedian is funny' or 'the statue is stone', like any other predicate adjective. The difference however, is that while one can say "he is being funny", one cannot say "the statue is being stone", or arguably "she is being intelligent"*. How this relates to psychology, perhaps, is that some will emphasize the difference between "I am angry", and "I have anger", claiming that the former—even though it is technically dynamic—gives the speaker the sense that it is stative, and puts people into a state of ascribing qualities to themselves that are temporary. This is highly debated as well, so please write down your own thoughts
*I could not find any strong examples, but if you have any thoughts—or better yet, examples—I'd love to hear them.