Returning to Visit

Time to play a little catch-up and revisit some posts.

First, a February post about unpaired words continues to inexorably affect me. I used the word inexorable a few posts ago and wondered if there is a word such as exorable. Since there is it does not qualify for unpaired word status.

But neither inexorable nor exorable have been covered in this blog. Inexorable means not able to be moved or unyielding or unchanging. Exorable means able to be moved or persuaded. Inexorable arrived in English in the 1550s, twenty years before exorable. While the word inexorable came directly from the Middle French word of the same spelling, its original source is the Latin word inexorabilis that means "that cannot be moved by entreaty".

In reading some of Emerson's essays this week I ran across the word educe, which made me think of the words deduce and adduce (which I found in reading a Perry Mason mystery). Adduce means to bring something forth as evidence in an argument (argument is also used in legal cases for one side's contentions in the courtroom) or to cite as pertinent or conclusive. Adduce was formed in Latin by adding the prefix ad-, that means "to", to the word ducere, that means "to lead." While that sounds like it would result in "to to lead" it results in the meaning "to lead to" or "to bring to." Adduce appeared in the early 1400s as did deduce and educe. All of which leads us to another word from ducere.

In my post on educe I mention the connection of ducere to the word Duke and conduce. But I never discussed conduce. It means to lead to a result. The original Latin word, conducere is formed by adding the prefix "com-" to ducere. Com- means together, so conduce is reminiscent in my mind of the mother duck and her ducklings, as she conduces them to the nearest pond. While conduce appeared about 1400, the word conduct followed shortly after (like a duckling).

Conduct is formed from the past participle of ducere. It originally had the general sense of convey, like a railroad conductor, then by the 1630s added the meaning of managing or directing. In about 1710 it began to be used to refer to behavior.

In case you wonder when the word came to be used specifically as the name of the leader of an orchestra, it was 1784. Conductor was first used in the 1520s for anyone who guides or leads, but when educe and deduce and adduce were coming into use the word being used for a leader or a group was "conduitour," from the Old French word conduitor. But once the word conductor came on the scene it won out. The railroad conductor got its name in 1832. The scientific uses meaning to pass electricity is from 1737 and to pass heat is from 1745.

You can now adduce that ducere inexorably leads to many words in English.

Cutting Up

Let’s stay in the c section this week. I’m not talking about the method of delivery, I’m talking about the dictionary.

However, it might interest you to know a little about what is now commonly referred to as a c section. Its full name is Caesarian section, and its etymology is unknown. There are, according to Wikipedia, at least three options. But since this isn’t really our word for today I won’t get into them. You’ll have to look them up for yourself. Suffice it to say that the procedure has been known since Roman times, when there is a reference in some of Pliny the Elder’s writing to an ancestor of Julius Caesar being delivered by this method. The Latin word for cut is caesus, and may also provide the source for this description. But if that is the case, the phrase Caesarian section becomes redundant because the word section in this usage refers to the cut, too. (It is also redundant to refer to an ATM machine, since ATM means Automated Teller Machine.) Caesarian section came into English in 1615 and the procedure, which is the delivery of a baby by cutting through the mother’s abdomen, was fatal for the mother until 1500, the first recorded instance of a mother and baby surviving. As recently as 1865 in Great Britain and Ireland the mortality rate was 85% (again, thank you Wikipedia.)

Back to the original thought for the day. Other c words for today are conduce and conflate, both of which I’ve encountered numerous times in my reading of National Review.

Conduce means to tend or lead (to an effect) or to contribute (to a result). Conflate means to combine, and usually refers to the combining of two written texts. A conflation of the Gettysburg Address and the Preamble to the Constitution might conduce to a phrase such as “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, of the people, by the people and for the people…”

Conduce came to English in about 1400 from the Latin word conducere, which is formed from the prefix con- meaning “together”, and ducere meaning “to lead” (we also get the title Duke from this Latin word through Old French duc in the 12th century; it came to mean a nobleman of high rank a couple of centuries later, replacing the Old English term earl).

What’s the difference between conduct and conduce? As is often the case, they come originally from the same Latin root word, but from different forms of the word. Conduct came from the past participle form of conducere, which is conductus. In the early 15th century they needed a word for “convey,” and adapted this word for that usage. Over time it changed meanings, taking on the sense of direct or manage in the 1630s and in about 1710 added the meaning of behaving in a certain way. It still has several meanings, only in the musical sense meaning “to lead together” and that’s different from conduce.

Conflate is from the Latin word conflare, which is the stem of a word that literally means “to blow together”, and is also used to mean kindle or light. It came into English in the 1540s.