Bon mots about superannuated and my dotage

Last week I ran out of space before getting to the word superannuate, and the week before ended with a bon mot using bon mot. I promised I’d catch up with some words I’ve previously mentioned but saved until later, so here we go.

Not only last week but in my blog post on May 23, 2010 I used superannuate and didn’t explain. In 2010 I referred to my father’s 90^th birthday as his superannuation. I didn’t expound on superannuation, and apparently didn’t even consult a dictionary, because had I done so I would have found out it doesn’t mean “very old”, it means retired because of age or infirmity, or too old for use. It came to English in the 1630s from Middle Latin, which combined the prefix super, which means beyond or over in Latin, with the Latin word for year – annus. It originally referred to cattle that were more than a year old. While it may have a connotation that relates only to age, it should not be used for anyone not retired, not someone in their dotage.

Dotage is the word I covered in my post of August 11, 2010,but I didn’t get to the word dote. Dotage originally meant simply “the state of one who dotes”, but it has come to mean “a decline of mental faculties, especially as associated with old age.” It can be used to refer to the act of doting, but I do not know of anyone who uses that meaning. Interestingly, the word dote has gone the other direction in meaning. It originally defined a decline in mental faculties, but has come to mean the habitual showing of excessive fondness or loving attention. It is 100 years older than dotage, and was adopted from the Middle Low German word doten, which meant “be foolish.” It didn’t get develop the meaning of excessive fondness until the late 15^th century.  Dotage still retains a certain sense of foolishness to the subject that senility and superannuate don’t connote.

The week before last I used the French pairing bonmot, which has been adopted for use in English since 1735.  It is literally translated “good word” as in “What’s the good word?” In common parlance today you might hear “word” used to mean the same thing. “Word” as a bon mot is a paring of the pairing “word up”, which means, according to UrbanDictionary.com, “I comprehend what you are saying and verify that your statement is true, my good brother.” A la “true dat.” To finish the etymology, the French word mot comes from the Vulgar Latin word muttum, which descended from the Latin word muttire, which means to mutter, mumble, or murmur and from which we get the word mutter.

More words to come next week that I didn’t get to because I ran out of space, as we’re out of space again this week.