Awful Change
Welcome to October! Did you know that the word October derives its name from the early
Luis Ayala
Roman calendar, when it was used to refer to the eight month of the year (Octo = 8)? Despite going through two “upgrades” (Julian and Gregorian calendar changes), the modern calendar still uses the name “October” even though its original meaning was rendered useless a very long time ago.
Words and their meanings, it seems, are free to walk down different paths, sometimes for political gain, other times as a reflection of changing social or environmental conditions.
Take the word awful: its original meaning was “full of awe,” a far cry from today’s usage to denote the opposite and unpleasant extreme! In Spanish, sugar mills are known as ingenios, a term derived from the Latin ingenium which refers to a person’s ability “to invent something” or to “resolve a problem” with ease. Anyone who’s visited a sugar mill understands the myriad of challenges and the matching number of solutions involved in its daily operation. Modern day engineers, however, get their name from their predecessors, who designed, constructed, operated or maintained engines.
Why is it important to identify and understand these language origins and changes? There is a growing field of work (Language Evolution) suggesting that the gap between modern human brains and modern human languages needs to be bridged by culture. The better we understanding this bridge, the better we will understand what it means to be human.
And if this last statement is hard for you to fathom, let me share that the original meaning of the verb to fathom was “to encircle with one’s arms.” Outstretching the encircled arms, however, yielded a practical measure of length (think of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man), a new meaning that was quickly adapted in the maritime trade as a way to easily measure the depth of bodies of water: a weight attached to a rope would be lowered through the water until it reached the bottom. The rope would then be retrieved, using the outstretched arms to measure its length in fathoms.
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rumconsultant