Do you hear an “Eco?”

No I didn’t misspell echo, I’m not that bad. What I’m referring to is an article in the New York Times, February 16th : "For EcoMoms, Saving the Earth Begins at Home." This must be a new word because the spell check underlined "echomoms" with the annoying red line; the line that tells me I’m a poor speller.

What can also be annoying are the words eco spawned. Ready? eco life, ecomotherhood, ecoanxiety, ecotherapists, eco-mother, eco-guilt, ecopsychology. As a politician would say, had enough?

The eco in these words are referring to ecology. Etymologically speaking (another "e" word), ecology is also related to economy and the home. The word is from oikos, Greek for home.

What happened to the "i" in "oikos?" When the Romans came on the scene, Latin changed the "i" to an "e". When this word was written in mid nineteenth century it appeared as " oecology" and "oeconomy."

If you would look up the word economy in the first English dictionary in 1604, Robert Cawdrey spells it "oeconomicke" and defines it "things that pertaine to houshold affaire." Now this guy really needs a spell check.

Dumbing Down not Smarting Up

"Dumbing down" has been used a lot in our daily life, even though it was first recorded in 1933. A slew of books with titles "...for Dummies" and the "Idiot’s Guide to..." have been very popular among the public. Clearly no one can know everything about every subject especially today when information is doubling every five years. What caught my attention is an article from the OUPblog from August 2, 2007. Michael Ravitch wrote that a high school teacher took it upon herself to revise the Declaration of Independence because the language was too difficult and then she was going for the Constitution. How brazen to take it upon oneself to re-word the Declaration. With younger readers this would make sense, but high school students this is ridiculous. Teenagers today can memorize and master complex abbreviations for emailing and text messaging as well as memorizing song lyrics; they can learn meanings of words.
The problem is not with the words in the Declaration, but the teacher.


When I read this blog, I was reading Novus Ordo Seclorum by Forrest McDonald. In his preface he writes "In thinking in the eighteenth century, I suggest three main guiding principles. First, one must pay close attention to the meaning of even the most ordinary words, for these have changed into a myriad ways. For instance, discover meant not uncover or find, but disclose or reveal, nervous, meant not worried or jittery, but strong or vigorous; awful meant not extremely bad, but that which inspires to awe and reverence." Then he writes, "A rudimentary knowledge of Latin is highly useful; after all, every educated Englishman and American knew Latin, English words were generally closer in meaning to their Latin originals than they are today."

This idea leads to an Op-Ed article in the New York Times, December 3, 2007 by Harry Mount "A Vote for Latin." He lists the politicians who had and hadn’t studied Latin. He also answers the question so many people ask who never studied Latin, "Why study Latin?" He writes " But what they gain is a glimpse into the past that provides a fuller, richer view of the present."


Instead of putting a lot of effort in trying to change the wording of the Declaration and Constitution, put the same amount of effort in teaching the students the meanings of the words in the eighteenth century.

Close the Gate and Keep the Dogs Out

I remember the first time I went to Washington, D.C. and the tour guide pointed out Watergate, the infamous hotel. I wished that the Democrats would have picked a Holiday Inn or a Ramada to have their convention. In the 80s was Contragate with the Reagan Administration. Bill and Hillary had their Whitewatergate in the 90s and now people are digging for something for Obamagate.
Dogs have even played an important role in politics. I was in Washington four months ago and saw the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial for the first time. Next to FDR is his dog Fala. Looking at the dog I could hear FDR’s words of a speech he gave on September 23, 1944 at a campaign dinner (I wasn’t there, I’m not that old), "These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala.."
On September 23, 1952, eight years after FDR’s speech, Richard Nixon was on the Eisenhower ticket as Vice-President. Nixon went on television to defend charges that he illegally accepted $18,000 in campaign funds. Nixon said in his speech, "It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it." Nixon wrote in his diary, "using the same ploy as FDR would irritate my opponents and delight my friends." Later this speech was dubbed "Checkers speech". The Encarta World English Dictionary online defines Checkers speech as"political speech deflecting criticism: a political speech dedicated to saving a politician's career by diverting attention from criticism rather than refuting it."
Now we have Seamusgate. Seamusgate? Is there a politician named Seamus running for president? No, it was the name of Mitt Romney’s dog. Now for the first time someone has combined the name of a dog and gate. According to the bostonherald.com , " Seamusgate, as the mini-scandal has been labeled, involves Romney’s admission that, in 1983, he placed the family’s Irish setter, Seamus, into a kennel strapped atop a car for a 12-hour drive to Ontario." This is the same year Chevy Chase’s National Lampoon Vacation came out. Chase’s character, Clark Griswold, tied his dog to the back bumper, but Clark Griswold is not running for president.

Even More Latin

What do a woman’s organization and a rock band have in common? They are using Latin! From the beenews.com, a group of women called the Soroptimists, held a fund raiser to help local domestic abuse shelters in the Portland area. I learned from a link to their website that they are "an international volunteer service organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and their families, in local communities and throughout the world."

The word is a blend of the noun soror and the adjective optimus. Anyone who attended college knows about sororities.

Optimus is the superlative form of bonus (good). When your boss gives you a bonus, that’s pretty good. An optimist looks at the best of life. The meaning of Soroptimist is the best for women. For a humorous take on Latin watch Monty Python’s The Life of Brian - Romanes eunt domus. I’m thankful my Latin teachers were not that strict.

Not only are women using Latin creatively, but also rock bands. The Queens of the Stone Age created an album called Era Vulgaris. According to The Age, www.theage.com.au , it’s a play on both meanings of vulgar. Vulgar in Latin means "common". The band wanted the double meaning of both "of the common people" and the modern meaning of "crudely indecent" . I hope a mob will not be waiting for them. Our English word "mob" is shortened from "mobile vulgus", the movable public.

Behold the Bread

Latin is a dead language,
as you can plainly see.
It killed off all the Romans,
and now it’s killing me.

The picture I took at the supermarket clearly shows that Latin is not dead.
Most people heard of ecce homo, behold the man, the title of a famous painting by Antonio Ciseri of Pontius Pilate showing Christ to a crowd of people.

I posted this blog after having lunch at Panera Bread.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I sat on the bus thinking what people, including myself, did before cellphones. I always ridiculed people on the bus, talking as if no one else could hear them, until I gave in to peer pressure and bought a cellphone and found myself doing the same thing.

Cell in cell phone is shortened from cellular. Try saying cellular a number of times and you will know why it has been shortened.
When new words are coined, and if they are difficult to pronounce, we tend to shorten the words. For example, the word fan as in football fan is short for fanatic.

The advent of the cellphone spawned many new words. Take your phone out and give it a good sniff. Smell anything? If you can’t, your next phone might be a smellophone. Not only do you have to worry if you have an odor, now you have to worry that your phone has an odor. Reuters online, January 16th, 2007, reported that "Sony Ericsson...made a new ‘aroma’ handset for DoCoMo, the ‘SO70i’, which comes with scented sheets designed to relax the users while making calls." Maybe a company should make "scented sheets" to relax the people who have to listen to other people’s conversations. The article continues "The phone offers nine aroma choices for the consumer, each coupled with a different panel design."

In our 21st century society, we like to think we are independent. Some psychologists are suggesting that the use of cellphones are making us more dependent and our ability to make decisions are decreasing. If we have a decision to make, it is easy to flip open the phone and ask someone’s opinion instead of making our own decision. According to Leysia Palen, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, used the words "grooming calls" for "nonessential expressions of concern, support, and love" (Psychology Today, January/February 2007). In the last paragraph, I mentioned that one way to form a new word is by shortening it. Another way, with "grooming calls" is combining it. Take two words that have different meanings and combine them to form a new meaning. Combining can take on one of three forms: it can have a hyphen between the two words, like blue-collar; it can have a space, like channel surfing; or the two words can be together like doublespeak.

Now that your phone smells good and is well groomed, is it on ICE.? This is an acronym which stands for In Case of Emergency. An acronym is when you pronounce the word like NASA or NATO. Don’t get this confused with initialisms -the individual letters are pronounced like GOP and CBS. We have always been told to carry ID in our wallets or purses just in case we were in an accident and needed to be identified and also wear clean underwear. According to the New York Times "ICE can help emergency room doctors who are trying to track down a patient’s family" (October 24, 2006). Instead of searching through a wallet, hospital workers search through the address books in cellphones. According to the article, not too many people are putting their phones on ICE.

The Return of the Robocalls!

I wrote in my blog on March 22nd about Robo Calls, well they're back. There is an article about Robocalls on the front page of the New York Times April 25, 2007.