Brody's Scribbles... The Entomology of Words

By Bart Vogelzang | VANCOUVER ISLAND, B.C., CANADA -- And there you have it; virtually instantaneously I’ve managed to misdirect you, since the study of the origins of words is actually ‘etymology’. We all do it, and by “it” I mean misread actual words, particularly if they are close in spelling to what we already know, and most particularly if we aren’t totally sure of their meanings. ‘Entomology’, by the way, is the study of insects, which, considering the last paragraph in this short article might well be appropriate. “Enough with the poor example of foreshadowing, foolish one,” speaks my inner voice.

Some knowledge of other languages can be a real benefit, like when one is traveling, but even outside of that it can enhance deeper understanding of others and what they may be trying to say. You can pool several similar words together in your mind, to allow you to envision more than what that simple one-word utterance may seem to indicate. On the other hand, the similarity of words may fool you into making associations that don’t actually exist at all…however; those forays can be a source of amusement for yourself, and maybe for all who learn of them.

Some words that are not so obviously linked, but have different, yet similar meanings in various languages, are sea, lake, and mere. By tapping into English, French, Dutch and Latin for meanings, we can spot connections that may point to their origins or connections. Just for fun, I will explain. Sea in English is the same meaning as mer in French, but the nearly identical spelling in Dutch, meer, and in English, mere, actually means lake. Even stranger, the French mer means the same as the Latin, mare, which is similar to the French, mere, which means mother in English. Stranger yet, the Latin, mare, is also mare in English, meaning a mother horse. So, without thinking too deeply about it, one can ‘see’ that the Mother Sea is the giver of life, sustenance, growth, and independence as embodied in both the human and equine mother.

Of course sometimes words are just chosen, or even kidnapped from their original meanings, to be assigned new ones. That can happen deliberately, or accidentally, and a prime example is the word ‘gay’. Despite the original meaning of joyous gaiety in celebration, it has been appended to homosexuality for several decades now. That’s probably a deliberate irony since so many gays are bullied that they are anything but…having been driven into frustration, loneliness, and depression by those who seeth not the truth, that sexual orientation has nothing to do with free will and choice.

Other words, seemingly linked by obscurely oblique connections like the ones mentioned earlier, could leave us laughing out loud at their inappropriate interconnectivity. Many Christian based religious organizations have the word “fellowship” in their names, and we’ve probably all heard the term “good fellas well met”. There’s nothing especially humorous about those, until we look at the word “fellatio”, as in ‘to suck’. One cannot help but wonder, with penetrating insight, if there was a deeper and now carefully hidden reason for the use of ‘fellowship’ in the all male devotional community, suggesting perhaps a different communal relationship, particularly in light of their sucky rabid attacks on ‘gay’ with their calls to enact prejudicial penile penalties. Naaa…surely not.