varro's page: words

Etymology and Derivations

This page is dedicated to Marcus Terentius Varro, a Roman writer of the first century BC. Like many since, he thought he knew everything, and was particularly fond of pontificating on the derivation and correct meaning of words. Here I shall pontificate about words of Greek or Latin origin that have attracted my attention for some reason - perhaps a novel usage, or because they are being irritatingly misused or abused.

As Edmund Waller wrote in the 17th century,

Poets that lasting marble seek,
Must carve in Latin or in Greek.
We write in sand, our language grows,
And like the tide, our work o'erflows.

• Film Classics Scenes from films with Classical content: so far only Monty Python's Life of Brian - Brian's grafitti come in for a linguistic bashing.

   

• Separated at Birth

  Over the years I've collected examples where two words in Modern English both ultimately derive from one common ancestor, but where the family resemblance (as with Sofia Coppola and Nicholas Cage) is no longer apparent. On this page these words are reunited, with a brief explanation of what happened to them.

• Sporting Quotes

  I've been noticing that there are a number of sports writers and commentators who love to flash their classical knowledge. Here are a few to get started. Contributions very welcome.

• Top Names in 2001

  There's little change from my first report in 1997(see below). For girls the Greek Mia is rising fast (up 20 places in 2001) - an ambiguous choice: is she "one" of many more to follow, or a precious planned only "one"? Probably reflects the popuarity of Kate Winslet - who called her baby Mia. Watch out next year for a rush of Hermiones, from Harry Potter. The early 20th century classical Lily is back in favour (number 36 - up 11 places). Boys stay much as they were: although down the charts we have a Latin Leo (at 101 - chosen by Prime Ministerial Blairs), and Maximus (from Russell Crowe's role in Gladiator) is beginning to appear from nowhere.
  Source: births in UK 2001.

• The Euro

  It is appropriate that the symbol for the new Euopean currency, the euro [€] is actually the Greek letter epsilon (naked e) - with an extra bar to symbolise its (hoped for) stability. The Greeks invented Europe. Europe originally referred just to central Greece (used first in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo) but soon grew to be a word for Greece as a whole, and by the beginning of the 5th century BC, not just Greece, but the lands that were joined to it to the north and west. It was, from the first, a balancing concept to that of Asia, with the frontier at the river Don (Tanais). Asia was inhabited by barbaroi (ie non-greek speakers: the derivation of the word was believed to be the inability of "barbarians" to communicate adequately, using some infantile atttempt at language that sounded to them like "bar bar"). Calling Europeans "barbaroi" was always an intended insult (as when used by Greek orators of the 4th century BC about Macedonians) - whereas for the inhabitants of Asia it was merely descriptive (but actually very insulting indeed!). But Greeks tended to have a binary view of the world - a handy division between Europe and Asia (as seen in art on, for example, the Parthenon decorations) fitted in well with their other "natural" oppositions: master/slave; man/woman; man/child; man/animal; man/god; immortal/mortal. No connection with Europa, the girl seduced by a sexy bull, who turned out to be Zeus.

  Greek lose their drachma after at least two and a half millennia. Originally it was not the name of a coin at all - it's the Greek word for a "handful" - referring to a handful of iron spits (obeloi, obols). Iron spits - valuable because useful - remained the medium of exchange in Sparta even in the 5th century. For the Attic "owl" (silver coin from Athens) see this page.

• Cars

  Automobile manufactures seem to love to christen their machines with high-falutin' classical-sounding names. We investigate.

• Greek Warships - the Trireme

  Why was it that the Athenians gave feminine names to the world's deadliest weapon of marine warfare until the exocet (which is merely French for "flying fish")? Does it tell us something about the way they thought of women? Or is there something rather endearing about giving a ship a girl's name? See the evidence and judge for yourself.

• Rude Latin

  Among the "Christmas books" aimed at rusty Latinists this year is one called How to Insult, Abuse, and Insinuate in Classical Latin by Michelle Lovric and Nikiforos Doxiadis Mardas published by Ebury. Inspired by this, I decided to go back to the master - Plautus - and have produced a glossary of some of his choicer expressions. There are also a few suggestions of how to be nice to people (missing from the Lovric-Mardas opus).

• Latin goes nuts

  A new EU regulation (the cosmetic products safety directive 1999) makes it compusory to describe ingredients on the labels of toiletries and cosmetics in LATIN, rather than local European languages. Peanut oil is arachis hyopogaea, water is aqua and egg is ovum. The idea is to help travellers in Europe avoid succumbing to allergic reaction. But the Anaphylaxis campaign is alarmed. It thinks sufferers will be more vulnerable, as they may not understand Latin.

  The Spectator (22 May 1999) comments:

  "What an attitude! We feel this is an excellent opportunity for people to learn a new language. Over the years, Latin has been eroded from our lives, first from school curriculums, then from the Roman Catholic Mass. Yet it remains a useful language and the root of many tongues, as does ancient Greek. Where does the Anaphylaxis Campaign think the word 'anaphylaxis' comes from, anyway? Cockney, perhaps? We suggest they advise their members to stop worrying and buy a Latin-English dictionary."

• Legal Latin to go?

  There's move to ban the age-old traditional Latin phrases from being used in English courts from April. Read an article which tries to quote most of what we'll be missing. Is it a long-overdue piece of essential modernisation, or an act of judicial vandalism?

• Pure Happiness?

  Did you know that the "most beautiful woman in the world" has a name which is perfect Latin, and means "pure happiness"? She is Laetitia Casta, and as far as I can ascertain, she was christened Laetitia Casta. She's a French model, born in Corsica on May 11th 1978 (which is also my birthday - although that was a few years before 1978 unfortunately). If you want to check out her claims to be the Helen of our times, just try a google search!

  

• Top Names in 1998

  There's little change from last year (see below). The boys remain Biblical, Irish and Showbiz, while the girls remain relatively Classical. Laura leaves the top 20 (down to 24), but new entries lower down include Phoebe (43) (due to Friends rather than any respect for the Goddess of the Moon - Diana doesn't make the top 50), Amelia (48)(=Carelessness - good name for an unplanned baby?) and Lydia (50) (only for slaves in the ancient world). But what happened to Zoe and Victoria? (Down 13 and 7 places respectively: have Zoe Ball's antics on Radio 1 been enough to put parents off her name? Has Posh Spice's liaison with Beckham tarnished her name?)
  Source: births in UK 1998.

• Galaxy, Galatea etc.

  For an amusing article linking the realisation in a Greek cafe that gala was the Greek for milk with the origins of the cosmos, see Presscuttings

• Oasis

  Soggy green stuff that you find at the bottom of a vase of flowers; an online magazine for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth"; a tacky swimming pool; a Barber Shop and Beaty(sic) Salon; cheesy night clubs; hotels here there and everywhere - and, inevitably, a troop of loud-mouthed Mancunians who are more popular than God (according to Big G Noël). There are 136910 references to Oasis listed by Alta Vista [1998] - where did it all start?

     The first reference is in Herodotus (3.26) - read the text in Perseus. The mad Persian king, Cambyses, had ordered a force of 50,000 to march from Thebes in Egypt into the desert to burn the Oracle of Zeus at Ammon. "They reached the town of Oasis, which belongs to Samians [Greek islanders], and is seven days' journey across the sand from Thebes. The place is known in Greek as the Islands of the Blessed [ie Heaven]. The army got as far as this, but there is no certain knowledge of what became of it. It never returned to Egypt. The Ammonians say that when the army was half-way between Oasis and themselves, a violent wind blew the sand over them as they were having lunch, and they disappeared for ever."

     The word oasis is not actually Greek - it comes from the Coptic language. It's difficult to see where Oasis got its cheerful popular meaning from - during the Roman Empire the Oasis was a favorite wilderness to banish criminals to - a place far away and unpleasant from which they'd be unlikely to return. A sort of Devil's Island.

     No doubt there are many who'd like to see Noël and Liam etc disappear for ever to a place from which they'd be unlikely to return - but alas they insist they must "be here now."

• Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis (Dictionary of Modern Latin)

  Father Carlo Egger would have been a man dear to Varro's heart. He's spent the last eight years compiling his dictionary of Latin equivalents for all those objects and ideas so unfortunately lacking in the dreary old world of the 1st century BC. How did Cicero ever manage without:

  • fasciola glutinosa    Sellotape
  • currus dormitorius    Sleeper (Wagon-lit)
  • iuvenis voluptuarius   Toyboy (ideal for Antony?)
  • sui ipsius nudator   Stripper (perfect for Clodia - but presumably she'd have been nudatrix. Nudatores are surely the male equivalent as being currently applauded in The Full Monty?)
  • res inexplicata volans   UFO (as seen by Caesar on 14th March?)
  • obscena observandi cupidus   Voyeur .

  It's a pity that so many seem to be clumsy circumlocutions rather than genuine new coinages - they really do smack of the pedantry of a Varro.

Top 20 Names in 1997

There are only a few boys' names in the top 20 which have any Classical connection among the Ryans (9), Liams (13) and Calums (15). Top names were the Biblical Jack(?), James, Thomas, Daniel, Joshua, Matthew, Samuel and Joseph. Who said we were a pagan country?

• 10. Luke - Greek (but also Biblical)
• 16. Alexander - Greek
• 18. George.- Greek

But half the girls' names are Classical. Why is the first Biblical girl Rebecca at 7?

• 1. Chloe (minus diaeresis) - Horace would have been pleased. (But she probably owes more to Stella McCartney than QHF).
• 2. Emily (Roman Aemilia, via Mrs Iago?)
• 3. Sophie (Greek sophia, wisdom)
• 8. and 17 Lauren and Laura - both ultimately deriving from laurus (which was already feminine), the Latin for Greek daphne, the girl who became a bush.
• 10. Georgia
• 11. Amy (from L. amica via French)
• 12. Lucy (from Lucia, feminised form of Latin praenomen Lucius)
• 15. Katie (ultimately from Greek katharos, pure)
• 16. Olivia (Shakespearean - from Twelfth Night. A bogus re-latinisation of olive from L. oliva

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