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.