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Centenarian

Etymology: centenarian

Today, my dear sweet grandma is 100 years old!  Although I credit my grandfather for my love of words, anything that’s practical, skillful, witty or quietly nourishing about me I owe to my amazing grandma Betty.  Due to quarantine rules, we are unable to celebrate this momentous day with her in person, so we’ll settle for a family Zoom video call. She’s currently dealing with a positive diagnosis for COVID-19, but is blessedly asymptomatic and her doctors are optimistic that she will stay that way. Still, we welcome any good thoughts to be sent her way!

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Though she will likely shy away from any acknowledgement of this achievement in her usual mildly self-deprecating way, it’s obviously quite a big deal to those of us who love her. She is now a centenarian! Has a nice distinguished ring to it doesn’t it?  The first recorded use of the word was in 1805.  Prior to that, people used the word centenary either as an adjective to describe things related to or consisting of 100 years, or as a noun to describe a period of 100 years or the celebration of a hundredth anniversary.  This word is still used in British English, but in America we tend to use the word centennial.

Both centenary and centenarian come from Latin centenarius, which formed from the word centum, meaning “hundred.”

As an aside, the English word hundred comes from a Proto-Germanic word, *hundam.  The Proto Indo European root for both centum and hundam is the word, *dekm-, which actually means 10.  This PIE root gives us a clue as to how the somewhat different sounding words centum and hundam happened. There’s this thing in spoken language where consonant sounds evolve over time, often due to people skipping or combining sounds to speed up speech. There are lots of different ways and reasons why this happens.  (Here’s a good wikipedia article about it for those interested.) Basically people added some suffixes to *dekm- to multiply it for use as the number 100.  Latin ended up with the one that sounded more like satam or centum, and Proto-Germanic ended up with the one that sounded more like hundam.  Language is weird.

Anyhow, I’m happy to be celebrating my favorite centenarian today. 100 years of Betty is never really enough, but I’ll take it. Here’s to 100 more!

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Limbo vs Liminal

My friend Rick Webb tagged me in a Facebook post asking for some clarification on whether the words limbo and liminal are related, and if so, are they related to the point of being synonymous which would make a sentence like “In permanent, liminal, limbo.” kind of bad English.

Here’s my explanation of why it isn’t the worst English, but also kind of is bad English, but how that isn’t really Rick’s fault and we probably have 13th century scribes to blame.

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Ok here we go! Limbo comes to us from latin, limbus, meaning “edge, border, hem, fringe,” HOWEVER! There is some debate as to whether the word limbus originated in Latin, because it isn’t a particularly old Latin word comparatively.

The idea of Limbo as being a waiting place on the border of Hell was actually sort of a mistake made by English speakers way back in the 13th century. Basically the Latin word limbo is the ablative singular of limbus, so it would be used in latin phrases like “in limbo patrum” and English readers would say, “Oh that must mean literally IN limbo” and made Limbo into kind of a noun/name, but it really wasn’t correct. Correct latin would be “limbus patrum” which literally means an edge or border (of Hell) reserved for pre-Christian saints.

The word came into fashion as generally “a place of confinement, oblivion or neglect” in the 1640s.

Also just as an aside, the limbo DANCE has nothing to do with the limbo described above, and is simply West Indian alteration of the word limber.  Limber probably comes from the word limb (in its definition as a bodily extremity), which is actually of proto Germanic origin (see the root word *limu-), but it got mixed up with the latin word limb meaning “edge” and the b was added, since people didn’t really have spell check back then and English was already getting confusing. 

So let’s move on to liminal. Liminal is one of my very favorite words in any language so this is very fun for me, fyi.  Liminal is an adjective, not a noun so that already sets it apart from limbo, and it comes from the Latin limen, which rather than meaning “edge or border” means “threshold” and though the idea of an edge or border and the idea of a threshold seem really similar to each other, they really aren’t once you dig into it. 

Liminal spaces like thresholds are in-between spaces, and their sole purpose is as a space where things pass through and don’t remain. Airports are liminal spaces. The side of the highway is a liminal space. City parks are liminal spaces. Grand Central Station is a liminal space. The breaking of dawn and the setting of the sun are both liminal spaces.  I LOVE liminal spaces. They are full of magic and weird energy because so many people trod through them but no one ever stays unless something’s gone very wrong. 

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So you can see how this word is very different from limbo, which means stuck or halted and unable to pass through. So even though they look the same, they really aren’t as related as one might think, but it’s totally reasonable to assume that at one point in time they both sort of came from the same arm of whatever proto language the sound “lim” formed in. 

As another aside, my Somervillian Chinese uncle Jimmy’s last name is Lim, which in Chinese literally means “woods or forest,” as does the maiden name, Dubois, of his wife, my aunt Meg. The forest is truly one of my favorite of all liminal spaces, since most people pass through a forest, though some people do live there if they can.

 

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Fever

Etymology: fever

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This word comes from Old English fefor, or fefer, which is from the Latin febris and is related to another Latin word fovere meaning “to warm, or heat.”  There is some debate on the origin of febris or foever.  Some linguists think it’s from the PIE root dhegh-, meaning “burn.”  Others speculate it comes from an old Sanskrit word element bhur-, meaning “to be restless.”

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Plague

Etymology: plague

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From Old French plage, via Latin plaga meaning “wound,” and plangere, meaning, “to strike, or lament.”  Or from the Greek, plaga, meaning, “blow,” as in a hit or strike.  All of these words come from the PIE root plak- (2), meaning “to strike.”  You’ll find this root in words like plankton, complain, and apoplexy.  The word plague came into use in English in the 1540s as a term for a pestilence with many casualties after the bubonic plague began to scourge Europe.

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Vaccine

Etymology: vaccine

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Believe it or not, this word actually relates to cows!  Don’t worry, I’ll explain.  The Latin name for the cowpox virus is variolae vaccinae, which comes from Latin, vaccinus, meaning, “from or pertaining to cows.”  The word vacca, in Latin, means “cow” and no one is sure of its origin.  Incidentally, the English word cow is a very old word dating back to the PIE root gwou- and is pretty much the same in all Germanic languages.  Anyway back to vaccine!  Smallpox was a very big problem for humans prior to around 1800.  It was observed that milkmaids, due to having been exposed to a similar but much less deadly infection called cowpox, had developed an immunity to smallpox. British physician Edward Jenner accidentally invented the vaccine by injecting people with the cowpox virus, or vaccinae, making them immune to smallpox as well.

The word wasn’t used in reference to other diseases until Louis Pasteur, inventor of the rabies vaccine, started doing so.  Incidentally, Pasteur also invented pasteurization, and thus the word pasteurize is simply Pasteur’s surname with -ize added to it.  His surname is French and means, “pastor.”

Speaking of Louis Pasteur, when I was a kid, I remember seeing a video, or maybe it was just a book, where Louis Pasteur is explaining what a vaccine is to a young boy.  I remember he said that it’s like a bunch of soldiers are marching into your body to protect you from diseases.  I have been unable to track down this book or video, so if anyone else remembers this and can shed some light on it, that’d be awesome!

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Virus

Etymology: virus

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First recorded in English in the late 14th century, this word comes to us from the Latin, virus, meaning, “poison, sap of plants, slimy liquid, a potent juice,” from Proto-Italic weis-o-(s-) meaning, “poison,” itself likely from the PIE root ueis-, meaning “slime, rot, strong smell, poison.”  You can find the root ueis- in words like viscous and viscosity.

Its use as a noun to describe something that causes infectious disease was first used in 1728.  Louis Pasteur, famous for his breakthroughs in the creation of the rabies vaccine, speculated that viruses existed, but the observation of a virus by microscope wouldn’t happen until 36 years after his death, when the electron microscope was invented in 1931.

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Corona

Etymology: corona

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First recorded in the 1650s, from Latin, corona, meaning, “crown,” from Ancient Greek, korōnè, meaning, “garland, wreath.”  In ancient Rome this word specifically referred to a type of garland or crown given to people who performed admirably in military service. The word comes from a PIE root sker- (2) or ker-, which means “to turn, or bend.”  You’ll recognize this root in words like circle, circumference, and also in words like range, ridge, and ring.

In many European and Scandinavian countries, currency is often referred to as crowns, or kroner due to the habit of imprinting the current monarch on the coins.

The circle of light seen around the sun during a total solar eclipse is also called the corona, and was named in 1890 by Spanish Basque astronomer José Joaquín de Ferrer.

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Pandemic

Etymology: pandemic

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First recorded in the 1660s, this word comes from the Latin word pandemus, which itself comes from the Greek pandemos, pan- meaning “all, every, whole,” derived from PIE pant- meaning “all,” and dēmos, meaning “people.”  You’ll recognize dēmos, in words like demotic, which refers to the language of the common people.  The word dēmos actually comes from the PIE roots da- and mo- which together mean “division.”  Thus this word implies a division between the common people and the elite.

The -ic part of pandemic is a word-forming element from Middle English -ick, –ike, or -ique, that’s used for making adjectives.  It means, “being, made of, caused by, similar to, having to do with, having the nature of.”  It comes from French -ique, from Latin -icus, and Greek -ikos, all of which come from the PIE suffix -(i)ko.  This suffix is thought to be the origin of the Slavic suffix -sky, Polish -ski, and Russian -skii and means “pertaining to.” You’ll recognize this suffix in many Slavic names, like for example my dear sweet friend Jenn Sutkowski’s name.

The word epidemic is older than pandemic and it is thought that the word pandemic was modeled after epidemic.

Pandemic is a pretty fun and challenging board game as well, and might be worth checking out for something to do during your quarantine.

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Sublime

Etymology Lesson: sublime

In an email, my wonderful pal Ashley used the word sublime. It was the best word she could think of to describe the feeling she felt when they put her son on her chest after she gave birth to him. I think it’s the perfect word for that experience and here’s why.

Let us start by separating the word into its two parts, the prefix sub-, from the Latin preposition of the same name, meaning “under, beneath, at the foot of,” and also “up to, towards, within, and during.”

Next, -lime, from Latin, limen, meaning “threshold, edge, limit, boundary.” Also the source of the word liminal. So the word sublime literally means, “at the foot of the threshold,” or “beneath the edge.”

I can’t think of a better word to describe those precious and rare moments in life where you are in a space of perfect presence with something hugely important. Before that moment was struggle, pain, and effort, and you know that on the other side of that moment is responsibility, the mundane, and everything else, so you stay with it as long as you can. The sublime.

 

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Kid

Etymology Lesson: kid

This morning I had to ask my friend Adam which he meant, a human kid, or a goat kid and that got me thinking about which came first.  Did we start calling human children kid because they reminded us of goat children?  Or was it the other way ’round?

Turns out it was goats first.  From Proto-Germanic, kidjom, to Old Norse kið, meaning “young goat,” and was pronounced either as kith or kih.  It has no as yet discovered PIE root.  The first recorded use of kid as slang for “child” was made in the 1590s.  The word’s use as a verb, as in kidding, wasn’t recorded until the early 1800s, and meant “to coax, wheedle or hoax.”  

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Somewhat related, the word kidnap, is the only surviving form of the word nap in its verb form, meaning not, “a short sleep” but, “to catch or seize.”  We now know this word as nab, but it was originally nap.  The word is likely from a Scandinavian source since there are the words nappe and nappa meaning the same thing in Norwegian and Swedish respectively.