GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out

My wife and I have been struck this week by the magnificent challenge of instilling character in our offspring, imbuing them with good values, and infusing them with the qualities they need to make the best choices in life. It is not an easy task, and I am not even sure whether we can instill, imbue or infuse. Hence today’s post.

Instill is the most commonly used of today’s words. It means, dictionary.com tells us, “to infuse slowly or gradually into the mind or feelings.” So to understand instill we have to know the meaning of the word infuse, eh? The definition gives as synonyms the words insinuate (in my opinion using a secondary definition of that word) and inject. Not my favorite definition.

The etymology (according to etymonline.come) dates back to the early 1400s, as does the word infuse. Instill comes from the Latin word instillare that means to put in drop by drop, stilla being the Latin word for drop. Which is why the verb instill is related to the word distilling or the device used in distilling, the still.

Infuse, on the other hand, comes from the Latin word infusus (from infundere) and means to pour in, a lot at once, not drop by drop. It was not recorded as having been used figuratively (as I did in the introductory paragraph) until 1520. It still means to introduce by pouring, but again Dictionary.com gives a second definition of “to imbue or inspire.” Does that help?

Imbue also arrived in English in the early 1400s, from the Latin imbuere that means “to moisten.” The definition given is “to impregnate or inspire, as with feelings, opinions, etc.” with a second definition of saturating with moisture or color. The first definition is the sense I used initially, to saturate with feelings or opinions in the hope that those feelings or emotions will remain. This word has the least indication of volume and most indication of the recipient’s role in retention of what is being used imbued.

This brings us to the word inspire, which has seven definitions to choose from. The breadth of meaning ranges from “to fill with quickening influence” to “to guide or control, by divine influence.” 

The word came to English in the mid-1300s as the word enspiren that meant to fill (like the mind or heart with something like grace) or to prompt to action. The Old French had a word, enspiren, from which it may have come. Or it could have come directly from the Latin word inspirare that meant to inflame or blow into. Etymonline.com says that the Latin word is “a loan-translation of Greek pnein in the Bible.” The idea comes from Genesis 2:7, when the creation account tells how “…the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

What is the role parents play in developing their children? We try, through imbuing them with the dew of our knowledge, instilling drop by drop our ideas on character, and sometimes infusing them with opinions. And when we are successful, we inspire them with our lives and beliefs. My parents did for me. I hope my children can say the same.