On Etymology

Etymology (n) The study of the historical development of languages, particularly as manifested in individual words; the origin and historical development of a word; the derivation. 

From  the Latin etymologia, from Ancient Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumología), from ἔτυμον (étumon, 'true sense') and -λογία (-logía, 'study of'), from λόγος (lógos, 'word' or 'explanation').

September, 1967. A warm day in late summer in my back garden on Croft Gardens, Hanwell, West London. Our neighbour, Janet, comes to visit me. She is two years above me and has just started her first year at secondary school. We're chatting; I casually remark that something is 'fabulous'.

"Umm!" she replied. "Our teacher says you're not allowed to say 'fabulous' because it comes from the word that means a tale told long ago!" "A fable?" I asked. "Yes", she said. I pondered on this for a while; I had indeed read books of fables but had not connected the word 'fable' with the word 'fabulous'. Nor indeed 'fantastic' with 'fantasy'...

Once I started grammar school, we had the most rigorous teacher of English who introduced us to the concept of (and woe betide any boy who couldn't define or spell) etymology. At the same time, I started learning Latin and French, and new linguistic connections were made, helped out by my knowledge of Polish. This, for example, helped me guess the meaning of châtaigne (chestnut, via the Polish kasztan) or requin (shark, via the Polish rekin). The Latin lessons also came in handy for learning the etymological roots of many words common to English, French and indeed Polish. Sadly, I didn't come into the remotest contact with Ancient Greek, though this is just as handy for an appreciation of etymological roots of modern words as is Latin. 

My father was curious about etymologies, and would ask me from time to time whether I thought word x shared a common root with word y in another language. To the end of his life, he kept a well-thumbed dictionary at his bedside. The book had small Post-It notes inside, and the letter of the alphabet written in highlighter pen on the facing edge.

Happily, along came the internet and with it online dictionaries, thesauruses and other tools to help the linguistically curious. And not just in English; the Oxford English Dictionary, the principle historical dictionary of the language, has been overtaken by Wiktionary in terms of ease of use and speed of update. Not as authoritative, but it is nicely comprehensive. Its Polish equivalent, wolny słowniki wielojęzyczny Wikisłownik carries (here and there) some rudimentary details (often from the online but decidedly clunky Wielki Słownik Języka Polskiego).

All this helps us vastly (or should do!) when it comes to precise writing. Communicating complex thoughts, rich in nuance, requires a reasonable grasp of etymology. We should dive in and check not just a meaning, not just look for synonyms, but discover the etymology too.

Languages evolve; the process of linguistic evolution has been described as memetic in nature. Just as genes carry information from one generation to the next, so memes are the means by which ideas spread. A joke, a gesture, a fashion, a trope, a concept, a saying - if it passes the test of fitness for purpose, if it is reproduced from person to person, it will spread like a virus. It helps if the originator has high status within the group hierarchy, then their idea will travel further and faster. Hence, influencer.

The word meme itself is a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins, in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He wrote: "We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'." So there we have it.

This time last year:
Free will, determinism, and the supernatural

This time two years ago:
Hammer of Darkness cubed

This time four years ago:
Magic day, in and around Jakubowizna

This time five years ago:
Warsaw-London-Ealing

This time seven years ago:
With my father and brother in Derbyshire

This time nine years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time 12 years ago:
Setting sun in the mountains

This time 13 years ago:
That learning moment