Public Service
Day, June 23
This
Sunday, June 23, is Public Service Day. Sponsored &
established by the United Nations in 2003, June 23 is a day to celebrate &
acknowledge the good deeds & good spirit of public service worldwide.
Public showed up in English in the 1300s as an adjective
through Old French from the Latin word publicus, meaning of the state, of the people, general,
ordinary, or vulgar (oops – someone’s elitism is showing). By the 1600s public
was also being used as a noun, meaning commonwealth,
or public property. It is related to
the words people, populace, popular, publicity, publican, puberty,
& pub. Its medieval English synonym, folclic, sadly, never
made it out of the Middle Ages.
The word public
first aligned itself with the word service in 1893, giving us public
service.
Service also came through Old French from Latin, though it
appeared in English two centuries before public. The Latin donor word was servitium,
which meant slavery or servitude, and
came directly from the Latin word for slave,
servus. Within a century, service’s
meaning had generalized to simply mean the
act of serving (not necessarily due to enslavement). By the late 1400s tea
service was born and by the 1500s service picked up its military
meaning. In 1941 service & industry found one another & service
industry was born.
But back to the UN &
June 23.
What sort of public
service can we each provide?
Moving a grocery cart so
it won’t whack into someone’s car?
Recommending a great book?
Offering a hand to someone
who could use it?
Contributing time or
resources to a social or environmental cause?
Maybe afterward we could
all meet somewhere where we can enjoy being served – like maybe the pub.
Please leave a note in the
comments section about some public service you’re aware of that warms the
cockles of your heart (there’s a future Wordmonger post, eh?) or a public
service you’re likely to engage in this week.
I always like the Greek term "hoi polloi" for the vulgar crowd. :-) Wouldn't it be amazing if our public servants in Congress actually acted like it instead of trying to make the public into slaves?
ReplyDeleteHi Anne,
DeleteAin't that the truth. I should start getting together a post on all the terms that refer to a "lower" segment of society. Hoi polloi, gross, common, prosaic...