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Issue 36 |
April 12, 1999 |
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This week, two readers have asked about the word evil. Efi Gat Mor wondered if it is related to devil but Rebekkah Graves waxed philosophical, thus:
First of all, let's deal with the
etymology. Evil has quite a different history from that of devil
which comes Now to the really interesting stuff. There is a widely held belief that the etymology of a word reveals its "real" meaning. This is just not so. The etymology of a word simply reveals its origins, not its "true" meaning. Words simply do not have secret inner meanings. Meanings are fluid and context-dependent; they are not contained in words but in the minds of those who speak the words. Both of us (Melanie and Mike) think that we know perfectly well what is meant by green until we try to select upholstery material together. Our choice of material is not made any simpler by knowing the word's Indo-European roots. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that tax-collector is derived from the Armenian word for hemorrhoid (surprisingly, this assertion is not precisely accurate). Would this mean that a modern speaker actually means hemorrhoid whenever he says tax-collector, even if he is consciously unaware of this abstruse nugget of etymology? Surely not. That would suppose (as Rebekkah implies with her "subliminally") that we all possess a subconscious knowledge of the etymology of each word in our vocabulary. If this really were the case then readers of Take Our Word For It could just as profitably take their etymology queries to a psychoanalyst. To find out what someone really means when they use a word just ask them, "What did you really mean by that?". [And if you think that period shouldn't be there, see Letters to the Editors below.]
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From Paul J. Archambeault:
Up to now, that is. As ever, Take Our Word For It is the final arbiter and ultimate resource for all matters etymological. Once upon a time, fairy was written
faërie. The two
dots over the e (called a dieresis) are there to show that the word should be
pronounced with three syllables - fay-er-ie. Although the words are
historically related, faërie
should not be confused with fairy in its modern sense of "wee folk with
wings and magic powers". They are fay. To understand the
distinction a little better, consider this: the place where rooks live is called a
rookery, the dwelling place of nuns is a nunnery, a pig's home From the 16th century onward, the meaning of faërie began to shift from "the land of the fay" to "the inhabitants of faërie". Thus, Edmund Spenser, writing in 1590, could use it in both meanings:
Note that Spenser used faërie as a collective term for all of the fay but this distinction was soon lost. By the 19th century fay had been replaced by fairy in its modern sense and only poets used faërie to mean "the realm of the fay". So, what about this word fay, where does that come from? Surprisingly, it is derived from the Latin fata "fates" (plural of fatum "fate"). The literal meaning of fatum is "that which has been spoken" (from the verb fari "to speak") and implies a destiny which has been pronounced by the gods. In Roman mythology, the Fata were the three terrifying sisters Nona, Decima and Parcae, who determined the length and quality of each person's life. The Greeks had similar goddesses called the Moerae (from moira "fate") - Clotho ("spinner"), Lachesis ("measurer") and Atropos ("snipper"). Likewise, Norse mythology had the Norns - Urd ("fate"), Verdandi ("necessity") and Skuld ("being") and Shakespeare may have recorded a distant echo of this triple-goddess in Macbeth where the three "weird sisters" (Old English wyrd "fate, destiny") predict the futures of Macbeth and MacDuff. After the Roman Empire converted to Christianity in 320 A.D., the old myths lost their power to inspire and terrify. The Fata became progressively marginalized until they lost their triune aspect and were thought of simply as a race similar to mortals but endowed with magic - the fay. The word fata does survive in fata Morgana, though, this being the name of a peculiar mirage which happens at sea. It is traditionally associated with the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and the mainland of Italy. The term is an Italian translation of Morgan-le-fay, the Anglo-French name of King Arthur's sorceress half-sister. Why she became associated with this particular marine mirage is not entirely clear but the Arthurian legends were originally Welsh and Morgan (from Welsh mor, "sea") probably meant "seafarer" in Old Welsh. The use of the word fairy to mean a male homosexual dates from the late 19th century. In 1895, the American Journal of Psychology reported the existence of a secret homosexual organization in New York called The Fairies.
From Scott McMillan:
Ultimately, it comes from the Greek koimeterion "dormitory" (i.e. a room for sleeping) via the Latin coemeterium . In its original usage, it referred to the ancient Roman underground cemeteries which we now call catacombs. We are not certain whether the choice of this word is merely euphemistic or whether it reflects the Christian belief that the dead will "wake" one day.
From M. Dash:
First, we'll give you the wrong answer. Printing was traditionally a dirty job and the printers often kept the ink out of their hair with improvised hats made of folded paper. In Italian, such a hat was called a capella (compare the French chapeau "hat"). Hence, some have suggested, the printers' chapel is named after their practice of wearing such hats. This is almost certainly incorrect. The first European printed books were Bibles and other devotional texts. They were produced by the church and the presses were usually housed in cathedrals. Specifically, they were situated in the small rooms known as chapels which were originally intended for the worship of saints or the Virgin. Quite apart from its connection with printing, the word chapel has a fascinating history. In the days of the Roman Empire, a certain cavalry officer called Martin shared his cloak with a beggar. Martin was secretly a Christian and he was subsequently canonized for this act of generosity. Centuries later, the cloak (Latin cappella) of St. Martin was one of the treasures of the Frankish kings and was kept in a special casket. The Franks used to carry this "holy relic" (almost certainly a fake) into battle to ensure victory. (Bad Christians, no wafer!) Eventually, this cloak gave its name to the sanctuary in which it was held (Medieval Latin, capella) and also to the special priests (cappellani, "chaplains") who guarded it.
From Richard W. Jordan:
Well, of course we do. That's why you should always Take Our Word For It. The literal meaning of the Latin paganus is "villager" or "rustic" (from pagus "rural district"). It was once thought its meaning of "non-Christian, heathen" developed because the ancient idolatrous religion persisted in the rural districts long after Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire. While it may indeed be true that the older Roman religions lingered in remote hamlets, this is not the word's true origin. A secondary meaning of paganus was "civilian". Early Christian authors such as Tertullian and Saint Augustine called themselves milites Christi, "soldiers of Christ". It therefore became natural to refer to those who were neither Christian nor Jewish as pagani, "civilians".
From Michael Laflam:
Middle English took this from the French hérétique, which took it from the Ecclesiastical Latin haereticus, both words meaning heretic. The original word was the Greek hairetikos "able to chose" from the verb hairesthai "to chose". Obviously, the early Church believed that people should believe only what they were told to believe rather than decide for themselves.
Phew, what a tough question! The history of church is one of the most contentious etymologies in the English language. Almost all modern scholars are in agreement that it derives from the Greek kyriakon "of the Lord" but the matter is by no means settled. We find your quotation somewhat amusing, though. The question of whether it has a Greek or a Latin origin has been hotly debated since Walafrid Strabo first asked it in the 9th century. We fail to see how something determined after a thousand years of discussion could be "too hastily assumed". There is no evidence to support the statement that "congregations were gathered in circles" so an origin in the Latin circus ("race-track", literally "circle, circuit") or the Greek kyklos ("wheel, circle") seems less than likely. Moreover, if the English church has its origin in circus, why did Latin itself use the words ecclesia or basilica? Conversely, why do we find so many* cognates of church in the Germanic languages but none at all in those languages which developed from Latin? One theory which Paul's source does not mention is that church comes from the Gothic kelikn, "tower, upper chamber". This word was originally Gaulish and hence Celtic in origin but, as with the Romance languages, all modern Celtic languages take their word for church from the Latin ecclesia.
* For the incorrigibly pedantic, the cognates of church include: Western Germanic kirika, Old Saxon kirika, kerika, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch kerke, Dutch kerk, Low German kerke, karke, kark, Old Frisian szereke, szurke, tzierka, tziurk, Old High German churihha, (also chiriihha, chiricha, khirihha, kirihha, kiricha, later chircha), Old Norse kirkia, kyrkja, Swedish kyrka, Danish kirke. (And that is without including cognates from the Slavic languages.)
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