Happy Father's Day

As one who for the first time in his life is not able to say "Happy Father's Day" to his father, I am obviously at the age where one must turn his attention to the idea of "What qualities and wisdom can I leave to my children that will make them as pleased with me as a father as I have been with my father?" As I approach my senescence I reflect on what qualities I hope to imbue in my children.

I would like for them to know how to be abstemious without abjuring joie de vivre (next week's post) or needing to be a bon vivant. It would be nice, too, if they were insouciant and have perspicacity and equanimity,

I hope they would enjoy (as much as do I) badinage and a good bon mot, and become a deipnosophist. While they have a burgeoning reputation among their friends as being sagacious they are also winsome and ebullient even if not(yet) considered to be a philologue.

I would hope they will learn to avoid being captious, mendacious, obstreperous and (they knew it was coming) contumacious.

Finally, I will be pleased if in the efflorescence of their inchoate denidified adulthood they learn to be polymaths without being pedantic, can solicit without being solicitous, are voracious for knowledge without being a quidnunc, and sapient without being sappy.They don't need to be fecund as long as they are not feckless. And I hope they always supererogate and have ruth.

To the extent that I exhibit any of these qualities I am indebted to my father. And to every father out there I wish you a happy father's day.

Ensconcing a Sconce

It was during our department lunch that a discussion ensued. Was ensconced a word or not? It didn't take long for someone to ask me for my opinion.

I told them "Yes, ensconce is a word" and attempted to define it. The best I could come up with was something along the lines of being fully engulfed or inundated or installed. Then I looked it up, because it occurred to me that it likely has nothing to do with the word sconce, as in a wall sconce (I've never read of a floor sconce or table sconce.) Later I heard them discussing the word scone, which bears an eerie resemblance to sconce, as does eerie to Erie.

First, ensconce is defined (at dictionary.com) as "to settle securely or snugly" or "to cover or shelter or hide securely." So my definition wasn't far off, but apparently there's an element of security that of which I was not aware. Its etymology I checked on my phone (anyone else notice that it's a phone unless it has an office or - at home - a cord to the wall, in which case it's an office phone or land line?) and found that its etymology is uncertain, perhaps coming from the French but probably from the Dutch word schans that means "earthwork." An earthwork is certainly firmly settled and is meant to add security. Etymonline.com defines ensconce as "to cover with a fort" and dates its arrival in English to the 1580s.

Sconce, on the other hand, has been used in English since the 1300s. A sconce is a bracket for candles or other lights that is placed on a wall, frame, or mirror (or the hole that holds it). Originally it was a candle with a screen, and was shortened from the Old French word esconce that was used for both a lantern and a hiding place. (Hence the speculation about ensconce coming from French.) But the Old French got esconce from the Medieval Latin word sconsa, which developed from the Latin word absconsa, the feminine past participle form of abscondere, from which we get abscond. It wasn't until the mid-1400s that it referred to the lighting fastened to the wall.

Removing yet another letter gets us to scone. Dictionary.com defines it as a small, light, biscuitlike quick bread made of oatmeal, wheat flour, barley meal, or the like. The scones I've had have been neither small nor light, but that's probably just the American "bigger is better" mentality. Etymonline.com says they are a "thin, flat, soft cake." Again, the ones I've had have not been thin, flat or soft. Etymonline also says the word (and likely the scones) came from Scotland in the 1510s and was probably shortened from the Dutch schoon brood, which with a heavy Scottish accent probably sounded to the English like scone bread. (In Dutch schoon means bright and beautiful while broot is the word for bread.

So three words so similar in appearance have little or no relation to each other. Now you know.

In Memorium

Yesterday was a thanatopsis, as we ceremonially assisted Charon in his task.

Thanatopsis is a word formed from the Greek words for death (thanatos) and opsis (view or sight). It was also the name of an 1817 poem by William Cullen Bryant. You can read the poem here. It is more about the dying (or is it dyeing?) than about the prospect of eternal life, and while there is mention of others who have gone before it is not as if there is a reunion with them, just a joining in death. So I don't quote it here. I am convinced my father joined my mother in heaven. (In fact, my brother Bob tells the story that follows.)

A couple weeks before my Dad died, he was waiting for me at the door of his retirement home when I came in for a visit--which NEVER happened. I always had to find him. But this time, I pushed his wheelchair over to an armchair and asked him why he was waiting for me. "I want to go see Millie," he said. That was also strange, because for at least the last year, maybe two or more, he would look puzzled when I mentioned Millie (my Mom) to him. But that day, he seemed as clear as could be, as if he could just get in my car and go see Millie.

It was just curious to me at the time....but last night it dawned on me that maybe he had a sense of going to see Millie before I had any idea that he would soon leave this life. 

So yesterday much of the family gathered for a memorial service for my father. Thanatopsis, a view of or musing upon death, was a word for it, but in reality it was more of a musing on the life of someone dear to us, recounting his foibles (foremost among them the odd use of his handkerchief - you'll have a to ask me about that one) but also the reprise of some of his favorite solos - he was renowned for his vocal presentations. And the meditation was brought by my nephew David, a Greek Orthodox priest serving as a chaplain in the Navy. I particularly enjoyed the Greek portion of the meditation that included a Greek hymn sung first by David and his three sons then by all the assembled.

And so we assisted Charon, according to Greek mythology the name of the boatman who ferried the souls of the newly departed over the river Styx. (The word charon can be used of any ferryman, but should only be used ironically.)

In the opening paragraph I mused over death. Actually, I mused over the word dying. Why is the word die but the form of the word dying? (I'm not sure whether the form is present participle form or gerund or even a deverbal noun; I'm more interested in the etymology.)

While the word die, meaning to cease to live, is common and dates back in English to the mid-1100s, it also refers to one of a pair of dice or for a stamping or cutting device that forms or cuts material from cloth to metal. The process of stamping or cutting won the battle over the use of the word dieing. If you are using a stamp to form (for instance) a coin, you are dieing. While the word die (ceasing to live) probably came from a Dutch or Norse word (there are many English words with their roots in Old Norse, since the Vikings ruled England until the Battle at Stamford Bridge in 1066, as I'm sure you remember.)

The word could not be spelled dyeing lest it be confused with the process of coloring

An interesting (to me) etylological thanatopsis from etymonline.com:

Languages usually don't borrow words from abroad for central life experiences, but "die" words are an exception, because they are often hidden or changed euphemistically out of superstitious dread. A Dutch euphemism translates as "to give the pipe to Maarten." Regularly spelled dege through [the 15th century], and still pronounced "dee" by some in Lancashire and Scotland. Used figuratively (of sounds, etc.) from [the] 1580s. 

I cannot leave the Lancashire/Scottish pronunciation without mentioning (since I mentioned my younger brother, Bob, earlier) that my older brother Don's middle name is "Dee."

So why is the noun form of the act of dying called death? I would prefer to think it comes from the Old Irish word dith but etymonline.com informs us that it comes from the Old English where it was deað.

Finally, one of my favorite poems (ever since son Joe learned it as part of his presentation in high school's Rotary speech contest) has been John Donne's poem "No Man Is An Island" which contains these words: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

So I am diminished today, but joyful because, as Dad anticipated rejoining his loved ones in heaven, so I look forward to that reunion as much as I enjoyed the one that took place this weekend. Or, as it's put in Revelation 21:4,

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. 

RIP Charles Vernon Hostetler, April 26, 1920 - March 9, 2015

Reasonable or Rational?

Last week we looked at the word reason but ran out of space before we could get to other forms, or to get to the question why reasonable has an s and rational has a t. 

Reasonable is the adjective form of the noun reason. It developed in about 1300 (it is reasonable to wonder what they used for an adjective for 100 years) but came from the Old French word raisonable which they got from the Latin word rationabilis. Etymonline quotes Erich Fromm, who in 1968 wrote in “The Heart of Man”, “What the majority of people consider to be ‘reasonable’ is that about which there is agreement, if not among all, at least among a substantial number of people; ‘reasonable’ for most people has nothing to do with reason but with consensus.” I disagree slightly, because there is still a certain amount of reasoning to it.

Reasonable meaning “moderate in price” came into use by the 1660s. When I use reasonable in this sense, what I mean is that the price stands to reason.

Rational is also an adjective, and came into English in the late 1300s. It may have come from the Old French word racionel, directly from the Latin word rationalis, or a combination of both. It originally meant “pertaining to reason” but by the mid-1400s also meant “endowed with reason.” It has a closer meaning to the noun reason than reasonable.

Reasonable would be similar in meaning to "making sense" while rational is similar in meaning to "having sense." Sanity is involved in rational, but not necessarily in reasonable. One can be insane and still reasonable.  

One interesting thing about these words is that their Latin words are all forms of the Latin word ratio, from which we get our English word ratio. In Latin ratio means “reckoning, numbering, calculation; or business affair and procedure.” When ratio came into use in English in the 1630s it meant reason or rationale, but by the 1650s it developed the meaning of a relationship between two numbers, its most common English meaning today.

But the Latin meaning brings us to another related word, rationale. When it appeared in the 1650s it referred to an exposition of principles, a meaning it retains today. But its primary meaning today is “the fundamental reason or reasons serving to account for something,” a meaning it developed in the 1680s. It came to English from the Late Latin word rationale, which is (as I’m sure you reasoned out) the noun use of the neuter of the Latin word rationalis. The final e makes a big difference in meaning. One must be rational to have a rationale.

From reviewing the etymologies it seems obvious that in adopting words from Latin the Old French would change the “ti” that sounds like “sh” in current English into an “s”. I was not able to find confirmation for this being the reason behind this change, but it is reasonable to assume it to be the case if you use the rationale that I am rational.

I'm Posting for a Reason

It is interesting how one post can lead to other posts. As with last week, part of the post from April 26 leads to today’s post. The exact phrase concluded with the words “reason and rational are words for another week.” This is the week for reason and being rational.

Why does reason have an s but rational has a t? And why do we have both reasonable and rational? Do we need both words?

Let’s begin with reason. It can have several meanings, but the most common is the one that has a meaning of a basis for a cause for some belief or action. Originally reason meant both “an intellectual faculty that adopts an action to ends” and/or a statement in an argument or explanation or justification. Within 100 years the added meaning of sanity or degree of intelligence developed. It was not until the early 1300s that today’s most common meaning developed. There are seven (or 10) meanings for reason in my dictionary, including one in Logic and one (or three) in Philosophy.

A couple of phrases that don’t make sense to us today use the word reason. For instance, the phrase “rhyme or reason” has nothing to do with what we mean by reason today. It refers to a defunct meaning from Middle English (the early 1300s) of reason to mean significance or meaning. The phrase “stands to reason” is from the 1630s, but the part that needs explanation is not reason, but stand. (See how it happens? Another week another “word for another week.” Or go to Languagehat, a website I discovered in researching this phrase.) Other phrases, like “by reason of” and “within reason” still have connection to the current primary meaning. 

Reason came into English in about 1200 from Anglo-French, where it was spelled resoun. The Old French word was raison and meant, according to etymonline.com, “course, matter, subject, language, speech, thought, opinion.” The Old French got raison from the Latin word rationem that meant “reckoning, understanding motive, cause.”

Reason as a verb (“I reasoned that it would be a verb.”) appeared in the early 1300s and originally was spelled resunmen. It meant “to question (someone)” or “to challenge” and came from the Old French word raisoner that meant to speak or discuss, argue or address. Raisoner comes from the Latin word rationare that also has to do with discourse. The meaning of thinking in a logical manner comes from the 1590s.

More next week.

Literally Illustrate, Please

In my April 26 post I used the parenthetical comment “figuratively, not literally.” It has become part of common use to misuse the word “literally” as emphasis rather, as in “I literally died.” Used in such a phrase the word literally cannot be accurate, but is used as an intensive adjective. But it is better as an intensive than the even lazier and increasingly pervasive use of the expletive “fucking.”* You can be “literally mortified” but not “literally die.” In the hilarious television series Will and Grace one of the funniest expressions Jack McFarland uses (you have to see Sean Hayes to get the humor) is the correct but hyperbolic expression “I would die! I would just die!”

The word that is accurate instead of “literally” is “figuratively” but it has no force if used in a phrase “I would figuratively die.” But let’s look at the difference so everyone understands. We’ll look more at die and death in a couple of weeks.

Literal means in the strict meaning of the word or words: true, factual, or actual. Figurative means not literal, and can mean using a figure of speech or represented by a figure or likeness. It can also mean metaphorical. Metaphorical refers to a specific figure of speech: using a metaphor. It may be true that all metaphorical expressions are figurative, but not all figurative expressions are metaphorical.

A metaphor and a simile are similar. A simile is a comparison using the word “as” or “like,” as in “you eat like an animal.” A metaphor is a direct comparison without use of “like” or “as”: “you are an animal.”

Where did all these words literally come from?

Literal was originally used of scripture, and the opposite was not figurative but mystical or allegorical (you’ll have to wait until next week for the post on those words). It came into use in English in the 1300s from the Old French word literal which came from the Late Latin word literalis (or litteralis). The Latin word for letter is litera. It did not gain its current meaning of exact in essence until the 1590s. Its misuse is long-standing. Etymonline.com provides the following:

Erroneously used in reference to metaphors, hyperbole, etc., even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate “what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense” (1680s), which is opposite to the word’s real meaning and a long step down the path to the modern misuse of it.

We have come to such a pass with this emphasizer that where the truth would require us to insert with a strong expression ‘not literally, of course, but in a manner of speaking’, we do not hesitate to insert the very word we ought to be at pains to repudiate; …such false coin makes honest traffic in words impossible. [Fowler, 1924]

Figurative is also from the 1300s and also comes from the Old French, from figurative. The Old French also got it from Late Latin, from figurativus, which means “of speech.”

Metaphor came later, in the late 1400s, but followed the same path: through Old French (metafore) from Latin (metaphora). But Latin got it from the Greek word metaphora that means transfer. Meta means over or across and pherein means carry or bear. So metaphora literally means to carry over or bear across.

While we’re engaged in etymology: simile also arrived in the late 1300s but directly from the Latin word simile, meaning a like thing or a comparison or parallel. Simile is the neuter form of similis, from which we get the word similar. (I find it interesting that similar arrived in English much later – in the 1560s – but was originally similary and didn’t drop the “y” until the 1610s.)

Etymonline.com has a nice quote from Samuel Johnson with which to end this post: “A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject.”

*I wondered about using asterisks in place of three letters in the word fuck in the first paragraph; it fools no one so you might as well write it out. It’s the same thing for “the n word” in place of nigger. If you think of the word it is indicative of the way your mind works. Using an asterisk or some other construction like “the n word” or “frigging” means you know it’s not right to say it but it came to mind anyway and you can’t come up with a more appropriate word.

Follow Up on Last Week's Post

Last week I mentioned the word virus, thinking it would be a good start for a follow up post. And so it is. But in researching virus I realized for the first time that there are two adjectives related to virus that seem like they would have the same meaning: viral and virulent. Let’s begin with virus, the first word to arrive in English.

It comes from the Latin word for things as disparate as poison or plant sap or any slimy liquid. It probably comes from a Proto-Indo-European root weis, meaning to melt away or for a bad-smelling fluid, especially one that could be poisonous. In Sanskrit poison is visam, in Avestan vish-. Avestan is an eastern Iranian language, the language or Zoroastrianism. 

Very quickly after the introduction of virus into English came the adjective form, virulent. Originally describing fluids, within 200 years it developed the addition meaning of violent or spiteful (or both). But its meaning was still relating to poisonous or at least very noxious. It had nothing to do with viruses. And so matters remained for over 500 years. 

In the late 1900s a Russian scientist named Dmitri Ivanovsky studied what became known as the tobacco mosaic virus, and then began the study of viruses. Viruses came to be defined as a biological agent that causes cell reproduction in its hosts. (But that doesn't make them violent or spiteful.)

According to etymonline.com the adjective viral was first used in 1948. My dictionary puts the date as between 1935 and 1940, Merriam Webster says 1937. None cite the reference. 

The internet-related meaning (e.g., “Larry’s blog has gone viral”) is from 1999, “originally in reference to marketing and based on the similarity of the effect to the spread of a computer virus,” according to etymonline.com. 

Another word I used at the very end of the blog was desalinization. Let’s start this analysis with the base word: salt. Salt is an Old English word with cognates in many other languages, including Latin, where the word is sal. Add the prefix de- indicating “remove” and you have the verb desalt. Desalt was the word of choice for a long time.

But alongside salt came the adjective saline, meaning “made of salt”, that has been around in English since about 1500, its form probably influenced by the Latin word for salt container – salinum.

By 1650 the noun salinity was formed to indicate gradation of saltiness. Then in 1705 the back-formation of the adjective saline into salination took place. (Probably the result of efforts by The Salination Army.)

But it wasn’t until 1943 that someone decided to try and take the salt out of something, and rather than use the old unfamiliar word desalt they decided upon desalination. Then in the early 1960s someone decided to create a verb from desalination and came up with desalinize (or desalinise in Britain). Eventually someone took desalinize and back-formed yet another noun from it: desalinization. Desalinization can be found in Random House dictionary and the American Heritage Science Dictionary. 

When it opens in 2016 (at a estimated cost of over $1 billion) the plant in Carlsbad, California that is designed to take the salt out of salt water will not be a desalinization plant; it will be a desalination plant. Score one for reverse back-formation.

From now on I’m going with desalt. As in "pass desalt, please."