Etymosheeple Round 1
The Urban Dictionary
defines sheeple as people who
follow trends mindlessly. Though I tend to fall into the odd duck category
when it comes to most trends, I admit to finding one etymology and mindlessly letting
it lead me to the next and to the next. Instead of trends, I mindlessly follow
word histories. I refer to this practice as etymosheepling. Here’s an
example:
I randomly land on the
word genuine,
meaning natural or not acquired. It arrived
in English in the 1590s, its Latin root being gignere, meaning beget. Genuine’s etymological
notes suggest that its form (ending in –ine)
may have been influenced through contrast to adulterinus, which meant spurious or false.
Adulterinus?
It must be associated with adultery,
but is it associated with adult? This leads my mindless mind
to look up adultery & adult.
Adultery is related to adulterate, both words coming from
the Latin word adulterare, to corrupt. Adult
– on the other hand – came from the Latin adultus, meaning grown up, mature, adult or ripe. Adult came into English in the 1530s.
The etymological notes under adult explain – and I can’t believe
I never imagined the connection – that adultus is the past participle of adolescere,
to grow up, mature, or be nourished.
This means that the root words for adolescent & adult reflect the same
sort of growth reflected by in-the-flesh adolescents as they change to adults.
That would lead me to…WAIT!
I could go all night. I love this stuff.
I could go all night. I love this stuff.
A good game of Etymosheeple
can be endless. With that in mind, we’ll call this round one, with plans of
continuing next week.
Please join in the game,
suggest in the comments section a thread we might follow from the final
etymology or definition above.
Adolescent...all I can think of is "nascent".
ReplyDeleteThanks for popping by, Rachel. I'll put "nascent" in the hopper.
DeleteLove etymosheepling! What a great word. So fascinating that adult and adolescent are essentially the same word.
ReplyDelete