Words have hidden meanings often different from their everyday use. This common use obscures other, more nuanced definitions with implications beyond their intent. Original definitions change over time, taking on different meanings from their genesis.
Sometimes non-words, though widespread misuse, take on meanings out of nothing. My favorite is "irregardless." It is not a word, but you'd never know it by the number of times one hears it used.
It is the etymology of words that can sometimes reveal their true meaning. Now, I'm not talking about "slang" words. Expressions like "cool" mean something excellent. Or "hot," meaning attractive. Or "sick" meaning cool (a slang word for a slang word.) Those are fleeting examples that pass through our lives on occasion.
I'm talking about familiar words that most don't understand the history. One example is "awful."
The first use of this word appeared in the 14th century in the novella "The Lifted Veil" by George Elliot.
"When I was sixteen, I was sent to Geneva to complete my course of education; and the change was a very happy one to me, for the first sight of the Alps, with the setting sun on them, as we descended the Jura, seemed to me like an entrance into heaven; and the three years of my life there were spent in a perpetual sense of exaltation, as if from a draught of delicious wine, at the presence of Nature in all her awful loveliness."
We use the word to describe something disagreeable. But in its original meaning, it implied something "awe" filled.
Then there is awesome. A word used to imply something impressive. In its original use, it meant profoundly reverential. It evolved to inspire awe or dread but is now beaten into submission through overuse to banal commonality.
Firearm, a word so common today in the headlines about the latest mass shooting, is such a descriptive word. If one considers its origin, it must have come from someone seeing a weapon using gunpowder to eject a bullet or ball. It is an imaginative word neutered by overuse.
From my Latin studies, I recalled Flamma ferroque absumi: I was consumed by fire and iron. One of the ancient ancestors of the term firearm. It is much more poetic.
But my favorite is the word Apocryphal. Something I've always known to mean false or made up. More formally, "…of doubtful or dubious origin, spurious." (Interesting note, if you look up spurious—which I understand means falsified or deceitful—the word's origin is Latin, meaning illegitimate, born to unmarried parents.)
It is the origin of apocryphal that captured my imagination and caused me to search for its etymology (and led to my discovery of the Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/)
As a writer, understanding the roots and history of words is essential. Which leads me to the gist of this story.
Apocryphal, in the formal listing in the Etymology Dictionary, derives from this.
Late 14c., Apocrifa, "the apocryphal books of the Bible," from Late Latin apocrypha (scripta), from neuter plural of apocryphus "secret, not approved for public reading," from Greek apokryphos "hidden; obscure, hard to understand," thus "(books) of unknown authorship" (especially those included in Septuagint and Vulgate but not originally written in Hebrew and not counted as genuine by the Jews), from apo "off, away" (see apo-) + kryptein "to hide" https://www.etymonline.com/word/apocryphal
The non-Biblical sense of "writing of doubtful authorship or authenticity" is from 1735. Properly plural (the single would be Apocryphon or apocryphum) but treated as a collective singular.
The phrase that jumped out at me was this one, "apocryphus": secret, not approved for public reading."
Which then took me to search for these "secret, not approved for public reading" books excluded from the Bible (and lo and behold the Apocrypha downloaded to Kindle and added to my already massive list of books to read.) Books included in versions of the Old Testament.
In its original meaning, the word described writings that were not accepted by canonical authorities to be included in the books in the Bible used for public readings. They were to be read in "private."
Seems harmless enough.
But when one considers that most people alive then were illiterate, this inability, and sometimes the law, limited the reading of the Bible to the clergy. Latin was the language of the church, and the Latin Vulgate was the official version of the Bible.
If most couldn't read the "official" version in either Latin or Greek, then they wouldn't hold "private" readings of the "Apocrifa" texts.
The term Vulgate, from the Latin vulgaris, means of or about the common people, which morphed over time into the word vulgar, which means coarse or low-bred.
This history shows us that Apocrypha has books only a select few would ever read. While Catholic doctrine accepts the books as doctrinally sound but not up to inclusion in the canonical scripture, they concealed it from most of the faithful.
The church concealing things from the faithful? Say it ain't so.
With the Reformation, using the word apocrypha by certain ecclesiastics took on the meaning of false, spurious, and, most critically, heretical.
Thus, we come to today when apocryphal means doubtful authenticity.
I'm sure I lost many who started to read this piece once it took on the tone of a school lesson. And that's fine. At least, I hope those of you who stuck with it gain something of an appreciation for the history of words and prizing understanding their true meaning.
There are those among us with less than admirable goals who understand the power of words and their ability to hide their true meaning in plain sight.
Apocryphal stories abound, pretending to be news when they are only vulgar propaganda.
Oratorio cavete, sed moribus carens! (beware those gifted of oratory but lacking in character.)
No comments:
Post a Comment