Hail to the Chief

In George Washington’s farewell address he spoke of “the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness;…accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity.” Is it any wonder that in this, which many describe as a most unusually contentious political, climate we also suffer from a recession the like of which has been unseen for 70 years. National union is what Washington sought to bestow, and through it happiness, safety and prosperity.

But in the midst of this wonderful intent for the nation he was so much a part of founding Washington uses the word palladium. This being a blog on words, we cannot let that pass without explanation. Palladium may sound familiar; it is the name of an “element of the platinum metal group”, according to the World English Dictionary. But that metal was discovered by William Hyde Wollaston in 1803 (which he named after the asteroid Pallas discovered in 1802), so it could not have been the meaning Washington intended.

Palladium is a Latin word, and was adopted from the Greek word Palladion, which is the neuter form of the word that means “of Pallas.” Now we’re getting close; what was Pallas? For those of you intimately familiar with Greek mythology you might recognize Pallas as someone Athena killed and then took that entity’s name. So sometimes Athena is called Pallas Athena. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, courage, and inspiration. Her sacred image, according to etymonline.com, “stood in the citadel of Troy and the safety of the city was believed to depend on it.” So, by the 16^th century, when it was adopted into English, the word palladium came to mean anything that provided protection or safeguarding.

Washington also wrote "To the efficacy and permanancy of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensible." Efficacy is not the same thing as efficiency or effective. They’re all good words, but they mean three different things.

Efficacy means being successful in producing a desired result. Effective means sufficient to produce a desired result. Efficiency means performing a job well and with the least amount of time and effort. Efficacy comes from the Latin word for powerful, efficiency from a similar Latin word meaning sufficient power, and effective from the Latin word for productive (through French).

So effective means that it works, efficient means it works well in its use of resources, and efficacy means it achieves what is desired. Was that explanation effective or efficacious? It was too long to be efficient.

It is not often that I read something and keep track of an extended quotation. But in reading the collection of Alexander Woolcott’s writings, Long, Long Ago (p. 49), I was struck by the following words that are appropriate for this Presidents’ Day: Woolcott wrote that we need

 …a reminder there was once a way of life called America, that it still exists and that it is worth cherishing. It will abide when much that we now think important is dust scattered down the wind. Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant over our fears, are, I think, bound up in it inextricably.