Back from "Vacation" Part 1

I returned a couple of days ago from “vacation”. I took three days vacation from work to attend a conference in Las Vegas. I have since been asked “How was Las Vegas?” and my response has become “I might as well have been in Bakersfield.” That is an overstatement, because I did get to spend about 1 ½ hours playing slots in a casino, and even won enough to pay for pizza.


A working vacation is not much of a vacation, and I find myself suffering from lassitude. I am not effete, but a little ennui sounds very appealing.

Lassitude, which has nothing to do with lassoing anything, is a state or feeling of being tired and listless. Weariness and languor are synonyms, although my dictionary includes them in the definition while listing lethargy as a synonym. When does a defining word become a synonym instead? The raison d’etre of this blog being to differentiate meaning, allow me a little diversion to do so.

Lethargy and lassitude differ in common usage in the following way: lassitude is more generally used in reference to someone who lacks motivation and exhibits tired and listless behavior; it has a slightly negative connotation. Lethargy is a more acceptable term that doesn’t have a connotation of laziness. Weariness is more purely physical in meaning, with lethargy and lassitude being attitudinal. Ennui is a forced and unwelcome inactivity and effete is a worn out inactivity (at least).

Languor, according to etymonline.com, when it came to English in the 1300s from Old French (languor) meant “disease, distress, [and] mental suffering.” In the 1650s the meaning changed to being synonymous with lethargy, and by 1825 came to refer to a “habitual want of energy.” Its Latin root word is also languor.

So, back to lassitude, which has nothing to do with television dogs (Lassie never seemed to have lassitude.) The noun comes to us through French (c’est la vie) from the Latin word lassitudo, which is a form of lassus, which means faint or weary and from which we get the word late, according to my dictionary. According to etymonline.com it actually comes from the Middle French word lassitude, which came not from lassitudo but from lassitudinem, the nominative of which is lassitudo. (Sounds like quibbling to me.) Its first known use in English is in the 1530s.

For many baby boomers, the word effete can’t be used without recalling the words of Nixon’s VP Spiro Agnew, who referred to protesters as “effete…intellectual snobs”. (For a full account of the quote and situation when Spiro uttered those memorable words, see http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2009/10/spiro-agnew-warns-us-about-effete.html.) Effete is defined as no longer capable of producing; spent and sterile, lacking in vigor and force of character, moral stamina, etc.; decadent, soft, overrefined, etc. It is a VERY good word to use in an insult, and not one most would want to use of themselves.

We’ll get to the more on effete and other lazy and Agnew words on Sunday; I just don’t have the energy to continue with this today.