From
From is an American science fiction horror television series created by John Griffin that premiered on Epix—later rebranded as MGM+—on February 20, 2022.[1] The narrative centers on the inhabitants of a remote, unnamed town in middle America who discover they cannot escape its boundaries, compelling them to fortify defenses against nocturnal, humanoid creatures that emerge from the surrounding forest and mimic human forms to infiltrate the community.[2] Executive produced by Jeff Pinkner and Jack Bender—both veterans of Lost—the series employs a serialized mystery format emphasizing survival horror, psychological tension, and unresolved enigmas about the town's origins and the creatures' nature.[3] Renewed for a fourth season in November 2024, From has garnered strong critical reception for its atmospheric dread and character-driven plotting, achieving a 96% Tomatometer score across three seasons on Rotten Tomatoes based on aggregated reviews praising its ability to sustain intrigue without overt exposition.[4] The show stars Harold Perrineau as Boyd Stevens, the de facto leader enforcing communal rules amid escalating threats, alongside a ensemble cast navigating interpersonal conflicts and talismans that temporarily repel the monsters.[2] While evoking comparisons to survival ensemble dramas like Lost through its layered puzzles—such as symbolic visions, historical artifacts, and cyclical time elements—From distinguishes itself with unrelenting body horror and a focus on primal fear over supernatural redemption arcs.[3] No major production controversies have emerged, though fan discussions highlight frustrations with deliberate pacing and delayed revelations typical of the genre.[4] Available globally via Paramount+, the series maintains a dedicated viewership drawn to its empirical depiction of isolation's toll, where escape attempts yield empirical failures and causal chains of predation dictate nightly rituals.[1]Linguistic and grammatical uses
Preposition "from"
The English preposition "from" originates from Old English fram, which denoted departure or movement away in time or space.[5] It derives from Proto-Germanic *fra or *fram, signifying "forward" or "away from," with cognates in Old Saxon and Old Frisian fra, Old High German fra or fram, Gothic fra-, and Old Norse frá.[5] This Proto-Germanic form traces to Proto-Indo-European *pro-, a root implying "forth" or "forward," reflecting an ancestral sense of progression or distinction from a point of origin.[5] [6] In its semantic range, "from" primarily conveys separation, origin, or exclusion, extending from concrete spatial relations—such as movement away from a location (e.g., "flee from the city")—to abstract domains including temporal starting points (e.g., "from dawn until dusk"), causal sources (e.g., "recover from injury"), and relational differences (e.g., "indistinguishable from its counterpart").[7] [8] These meanings often develop through metaphorical extensions from spatial prototypes, where causality is modeled as departure from a source, as observed in cognitive linguistic analyses of prepositional polysemy.[7] [9] Grammatically, "from" functions as a versatile preposition in modern English, governing nouns, pronouns, or gerunds (e.g., "prevented from leaving") while integrating into phrasal constructions for emphasis on origin or contrast. Usage data from the British National Corpus, a 100-million-word collection of late 20th-century British English, indicate "from" as one of the highest-frequency prepositions, appearing prominently in indicative clauses and comparatives to denote source or divergence, with patterns like "different from" or "from...to" comprising significant collocational instances.[10] [11] This prevalence underscores its role in encoding causal realism through empirical distinctions of separation in both spoken and written registers.[10]SQL keyword
In Structured Query Language (SQL),FROM is a reserved keyword that specifies the data sources, such as tables or views, from which data is retrieved in a SELECT statement.[12] It forms the foundational clause for defining the initial dataset in queries, as in the basic form SELECT column_list FROM [table_name](/page/Relational_database), where the database engine identifies and accesses the specified relations to form a Cartesian product or joined result set before applying further filters or projections.[13] This keyword was formalized in the ANSI SQL-86 standard (X3.135-1986), which established SQL's syntax and semantics for relational database management systems, building on IBM's earlier prototype implementations in the 1970s.[14] [15]
Logically, the FROM clause is the first step in SQL's query execution order, preceding WHERE, GROUP BY, and SELECT clauses, even though it appears after SELECT in written syntax.[16] During processing, it resolves table references, performs any specified JOIN operations (introduced more robustly in later standards like SQL-92), and constructs the intermediate result set, enabling subqueries, aggregations via GROUP BY, and set operations.[17] This sequence ensures efficient data sourcing and relational integrity, as defined in ISO/IEC 9075, the ongoing international standard evolving from ANSI SQL-86.[18] The keyword's role traces to the relational model's origins in Edgar F. Codd's 1970 IBM paper, where data retrieval from relations emphasized declarative querying over procedural navigation, powering scalable database systems since System R's development in 1974.[19] [12]
Semantically, FROM denotes the origin of data without broader linguistic connotations of the English preposition, focusing instead on causal sourcing in relational algebra equivalents like projection and selection.[13] Its empirical utility in database management stems from enabling joins across multiple tables—e.g., SELECT * FROM users u JOIN orders o ON u.id = o.user_id—which handle real-world data volumes efficiently, as evidenced by widespread adoption in systems like IBM DB2 and Oracle since the late 1970s.[12] Variations in dialect-specific extensions (e.g., Common Table Expressions in SQL-99) build upon this core, but the keyword remains invariant across compliant implementations for core query formulation.[15]
Anthroponymy
Surname From
The surname From is a rare anthroponym, ranking as the 59,154th most common surname globally, with an estimated incidence of around 8,500 bearers worldwide as of recent genealogical databases.[20] It exhibits low overall prevalence, occurring approximately once per 853,943 individuals, and is concentrated predominantly in Europe, where 47% of bearers reside, including 38% in Northern Europe and 37% in Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Denmark.[20] Etymologically, "From" in Swedish contexts derives from the adjective from, signifying "quiet" or "pious," often adopted as a soldier's name in historical military naming conventions during the 17th–19th centuries, when such descriptive epithets were formalized into hereditary surnames.[21] Among Ashkenazic Jewish populations, it appears as a variant of the surname Fromm, reflecting phonetic or orthographic adaptations in diaspora communities.[21] These origins align with broader patterns of locative or characteristic naming in Nordic and Central European traditions, where surnames evolved from medieval bynames tied to personal traits, occupations, or places of origin, though direct evidence for "From" as a strict preposition-derived migrant byname remains anecdotal rather than systematically documented in primary records.[22] No individuals bearing the surname From have achieved broad historical or contemporary notability verifiable through empirical metrics such as major awards, publications, or leadership roles in peer-reviewed or official records; searches across biographical databases yield no prominent figures with sustained global impact.[20] Genealogical distributions underscore its niche persistence in Nordic demographics, with potential ties to pre-industrial patronymic shifts, but without evidence of exceptional bearers elevating its profile beyond regional obscurity.[20]Entertainment and media
Television
"From" is an American science fiction horror television series created by John Griffin that premiered on MGM+ (formerly Epix) on February 20, 2022.[2] [1] The series follows residents trapped in a remote, unnamed town in middle America from which no one can escape, facing nightly attacks by shape-shifting creatures that emerge after dark and demand entry into homes.[2] Key cast members include Harold Perrineau as Boyd Stevens, the town's sheriff enforcing survival protocols; Catalina Sandino Moreno as Tabitha Matthews; and Eion Bailey as Jim Matthews.[23] The narrative emphasizes isolation's psychological toll and incremental revelations about the town's origins, driving plot progression through cause-and-effect dependencies rather than standalone episodes.[4] As of November 2024, MGM+ renewed the series for a fourth season, with production resuming in Nova Scotia, Canada, where principal photography began on June 23, 2025, and is scheduled to continue for approximately five months.[24] [25] Filming locations include sets in Halifax and Beaver Bank, replicating the eerie town environment established in prior seasons.[26] Cast statements indicate a potential premiere in early 2026, aligning with post-production timelines for the 10-episode season.[25] [27] The first season received critical acclaim, earning a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews, with praise centered on its atmospheric tension and Perrineau's anchoring performance amid the mystery's unfolding causality.[28] Subsequent seasons maintained strong viewer engagement through serialized revelations tying resident backstories to the town's supernatural mechanics, though some critiques noted pacing strains from withheld explanations.[4] No other major television productions share the exact title "From," distinguishing it from similarly named international series like the Spanish "From Tomorrow."[29]Music
Songs titled or albums named exactly "From" remain rare in recorded music history, with no major commercial releases dominating charts or discographies from reputable databases like Discogs.[30] Independent and electronic artists have occasionally employed the title for experimental tracks, but these garner limited streams—often under 100,000 on Spotify—reflecting niche rather than broad appeal. For example, instrumental pieces in electronic subgenres may use "From" to signify departure or transition, though verifiable examples are sparse and lack the cultural impact of more descriptive titles.[31] This scarcity contrasts with the preposition's frequent appearance within longer song titles, such as "From the Start" by Laufey (2023), which amassed millions of plays, underscoring how exact minimalism limits discoverability in algorithmic platforms.Literature and other media
No major works of literature are titled simply "From." Searches of bibliographic databases reveal no prominent novels, short story collections, or anthologies bearing this exact title, underscoring the term's limited adoption in literary naming conventions compared to its grammatical prevalence. Independent films or ancillary media with the standalone title "From" are similarly absent from major archives. While minor short films exist under variant names like "From Inside" (2015), no verifiable feature-length or notable indie productions match precisely, with film databases prioritizing compound titles such as "From Here" or "From the Ashes."[32] This scarcity extends to video games and podcasts, where no AAA titles or established series use "From" alone, though fan discussions speculate on adaptations from related media.Technical and miscellaneous uses
Computing and programming beyond SQL
In email protocols standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the "From" header in Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) messages specifies the originator's mailbox address, facilitating sender identification and traceability in message routing. Defined in RFC 5322 (published October 2008), this header supports a list of one or more email addresses, distinct from the envelope sender provided via the MAIL FROM command in RFC 5321, which handles reverse-path for delivery errors.[33] These mechanisms ensure causal logging of message origins without relying on content semantics, as verified through protocol implementations in systems like Postfix and Sendmail, where header parsing enforces compliance for anti-spoofing checks. In Python, a widely used programming language developed by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, the "from module import" statement imports specific names (functions, classes, or variables) from a module into the current namespace, promoting modular code reuse and dependency isolation. This syntax, part of Python's import machinery since version 1.5 (1998), contrasts with absolute imports by allowing selective exposure, as infrom math import sqrt, which loads only the sqrt function while resolving the module via sys.path directories.[34] Empirical analysis of Python's import system reveals its role in enforcing traceable data flows, where module origins are logged in execution traces (e.g., via sys.modules), enabling debugging tools like pdb to reconstruct call provenance without full namespace pollution. Relative variants, such as from . import sibling, support package-level imports in Python 2.5+ (2006), but require explicit packaging to avoid circular dependencies.
Beyond these, "from" appears sparingly in other protocol specifications for origin designation, such as the optional "From" header in HTTP/1.1 (RFC 7231, 2014), which conveys the client user's email for proxy logging but is rarely implemented due to privacy concerns. In scripting contexts like shell environments, "from" lacks keyword status, deferring to positional parameters for source referencing, underscoring its niche utility in high-level languages and network standards rather than low-level constructs. These usages prioritize verifiable provenance in distributed systems, as standards like RFCs provide unambiguous parsing rules tested across interoperable implementations.