Literati Glitterati - Part 2

[Continued from Sunday]

While erstwhile has an archaic usage as an adverb it is now used as an adjective meaning former, or of an earlier time. What is interesting is that the word erst, while its definitions as either adverb or adjective are deemed either obsolete or archaic in usage, means formerly, too. We’ve lost the simple word and added a while. Erstwhile is a synonym of quondam (see 7/11/10 blog).


Etymonline.com says that it is a cognate with Old Swedish, Old High German (erist) and German (erst). A cognate, it also says, is “a cousin, not a sibling”; it refers to something with a common descent. The word cognate came to English from the Latin word cognatus in the 1640s. Cognatus, it says, is formed from a combining of the prefix com- which means together, and gnatus, which is the past participle of gnasci, which is an older form of the word nasci, which means “to be born” and from which we get the word nascent (see 2/15/10 blog). I find that to be an interesting etymology (or is it a geneology?)

As to my being a picaresque propaedeutic, I will spend some time this week learning as much as possible  from my predecessor in my new position. That is what makes me propaedeutic.

Propaedeutic means “having the nature of elementary or introductory instruction.” It comes from Greek, the “pro-“ being a prefix we use in English that means before (in this case) and paideuein, which means “to teach” (a cognate from which we get the word pedagogy). It is a relatively recent addition to English, having arrived first as a noun in 1798 and then becoming an adjective in 1849. The current noun form has added the suffix –al.

Picaresque is a picturesque word. It is an adjective “designating or of sharp-witted vagabonds and their roguish adventures.” It is the latest of today’s words to arrive in English, having come from Spanish in 1810. The Spanish word was picaresco, which means “roguish”, and was formed from picaro (rogue) or possibly from picar (to pierce). It was originally used in the phrase “roman picaresque”, or rogue novel. “The classic example of a roman picaresque is Gil Blas” says etymonline.com.

The full title of the novel is “The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane”. Gil Blas was written by Alain René le Sage and published in 1730. According to Wikipedia “it is considered to be the last masterpiece of the picaresque genre.”

Will I be picaresque in my new position? Perhaps not as a vagabond, and depending on your definition of rogue, perhaps not as that either; but I hope to be somewhat witty, and will definitely be roaming and will likely recount some of my adventures in this space, since I was given a journal as a gift on my departure from the AFP chapter in Modesto. But I’ll never be a literati glitterati.