The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language (34 page)

Meanwhile,
punk
was an early twentieth-century American term for a homosexual, specifically the young and pliable companion of an elderly and implacable hobo. From there,
punk
turned into a generalised insult and then was taken as a badge of honour by noisy rockers in the 1970s. However, an etymologist can still look at the term
cyberpunk
and wonder what these well-governed homosexuals are up to.

Another word that has switched its meaning entirely is
virtual
. Virtual reality, in case you didn’t know, is reality that isn’t real. It’s
virtually real
, though that’s not much better than being
virtually pregnant
. But what really bothers the etymologist is that very few of the things that happen in virtual reality are in the slightest bit
virtuous
.

If one thing is
virtually
another, it’s because it shares the same
virtues
. Of course,
virtues
here don’t have to be moral virtues, they can be physical ones. If I’m virtually asleep, then I’m not asleep but possess the same physical virtues as somebody who is. A virtue doesn’t have to be good: a
virtu
oso torturer isn’t a good man, he’s just good at his job. It’s the sense of virtue that survives in the phrase
by virtue of
.

Even though you can now achieve things
by virtue of dishonesty
,
virtue
used to be a much better thing. Courage, strength, honesty and generosity all used to be virtues, although few of those survive in virtual reality. In the ancient world, a virtue was anything that was commendable in a person. Well, I say person, but I mean man.

Women can’t be virtuous. A virtue is
that which is proper to a man
. The Latin for
man
was
vir
, and
virtus
was the Latin word for
manliness
.
Virtue
is basically the same thing as
virility
.

So if a woman were to be virtuous she would become a man-woman, which is a terrible idea. A man-woman might be so bold as to have her own opinions. She might even express them, at which point she would become a
vir
ago.

To be fair,
virago
was originally a word for a heroic woman; but that’s still rather sexist, as it implies that heroism is a purely manly quality. In fact, language is irredeemably sexist; but that’s not my fault, it’s the Romans’. Look at their attitude to women in the workplace.

Turning Trix

Meretricious
is an odd little word that lots of people get wrong. It sounds a little like
merit
and, as merit is a good thing, you would take a guess that
meretricious
means, well,
meritable
.

It doesn’t.
Meretricious
means
showy
,
gaudy
and
contemptible
. However, the
meret
in
meretricious
is the same Latin root that you find in
merit
. The only difference is that it’s women who are doing the meriting.

When the Romans wanted to point out that somebody was female, they would put a
trix
on the end on the word. It’s a habit that has largely died out, but you still find it occasionally. A female aviator is sometimes an
aviatrix
, a female editor can be an
editrix
, and a lady who is paid to dominate men is a
dominatrix
.

There used to be more trixes – a
tonstrix
was a female hairdresser – but they slowly died out. Back in ancient Rome, though, they didn’t like women having jobs at all. In fact, almost the only women who had jobs in Rome were the women who stood in front of brothels looking for customers. The Latin for
standing in front
of things is
prostitutio
.

It was a way of earning a living, almost the only one for a girl, and the Latin for earning was
merere
. When a man earned a living he
merited
it, and became
meritable
. A veteran soldier who had retired to spend his money could proudly call himself
emeritus
, meaning that he had
earned
all he needed and retired, which is where we get Emeritus Professors.

That’s because a soldier was a man. But when a girl earned a living she was a
meretrix
, and
meretrix
could mean only one thing: tart. And that’s why
meretricious
still means
tarty
.

Amateur Lovers

The opposite of
meretricious
can be found hidden away in the game of tennis, where the true nature of love can also be discovered. But first, a brief note on the word
tennis
. It’s not called that, you know. The proper term for the game played at Wimbledon is
sphairistike
.

The rules of tennis as we know them were set down by a man called Major Walton Clopton Wingfield back in the 1890s. Tennis had been played before, of course – Shakespeare refers to the game several times – but it had always been played by kings and princes in the courtyards of palaces. It wasn’t until the invention of the lawnmower in the nineteenth century that people were able to play on lawns. Major Walton Clopton Wingfield wanted to distinguish his new game from the old tennis, which came from the French word
tenez
, meaning
hold!
So he lighted on the name
sphairistike
, which is ancient Greek for
ball-skill
.

Sphairistike became wildly popular, but there was one hitch: nobody knew how the hell to pronounce it. Did it rhyme with
pike
? Or with
piquet
? In fact, it rhymed with
sticky
; but nobody knew that. So rather than make fools of themselves by getting it wrong, people just decided to call it
lawn tennis
and to hell with Major Walton Clopton Wingfield and his Greek.

Wingfield did keep the scoring system of the old tennis, though, and it’s there that we may find the true nature of love. You may have heard that
love
in tennis is a corruption of the French
l’oeuf
, meaning
egg
, because an egg looks a bit like a zero. This is a myth.
28
Love
is
nothing
because those who do something for the love of it do it for nothing. For example, people either marry for money or connections, or for love. Love therefore became a synonym for nothing, because if you do something purely for love, you get nothing. By 1742 this notion of
love
being
zero
had been taken across to games and sports. In fact, the first known reference is to the score in whist.

Love
in tennis is therefore the exact opposite of prostitution. It’s the celebration of the
amateur
.
Amare
is the Latin for
love
, from which we get
amiable
,
amorous
and
paramour
. And if you were doing something for your paramour, you wouldn’t charge for it, would you? As late as 1863, a man could still write that he was ‘not an amateur of melons’, which simply meant that he didn’t like them.

The distinction between amateur and professional is merely a distinction between those who love what they do, and those who do it because they are paid. Unfortunately this means that all lovers are rather amateurish. They can’t help it, it’s built into the etymology.

Love is much better than money. You should be afraid of money – that’s what
money
means.

28
It is, though, true in cricket, where a zero was referred to as a
duck’s egg
, which then got shortened to
duck
.

Dirty Money

Money is a monster, etymologically speaking. It all comes down to the Latin word
monere
, and even though the connection is accidental it’s probably still significant.

Monere
was Latin for
warn
, and if you have a pre-
monition
you are forewarned. In the ancient world they believed that horrible beasts were omens of disasters. The idea was that just before the fall of an emperor or the loss of a great battle, centaurs, griffins and sphinxes would come out of wherever they were hiding and roam around in full view. These unnatural creatures, composed of the parts of other animals, were therefore called
warnings
, or
monsters
(
monstrum
, from
monere
).

However, if you need a warning and can’t afford a centaur, geese will do just as well. People still keep guard geese because they kick up a fearsome racket if they spot an intruder and they can also be pretty vicious. You should never say boo to a goose, not unless you’re prepared for a fight. The Romans kept guard geese on the Capitoline Hill. This came in useful when Rome was attacked by the Gauls in 390 BC, so useful in fact that the Romans put up a temple in thanksgiving. But being ungrateful sods they didn’t dedicate it to geese, they dedicated it to Juno, the goddess of warnings, or
Juno Moneta
.

Next door to the temple of Juno Moneta was the building where all the Roman coins were produced. In fact, the coins may have been made in part of the temple itself. Nobody is quite sure, and the sources are rather vague. What is certain is that the coin-producing building got named after the temple. It was the
Moneta
, and though we’ve changed all the vowels, we still call such a building a
mint
.

In the Moneta, they produced
moneta
: literally
warnings
. The French took the word and dropped the T so that it was already
money
when it arrived in English. However, our adjective
monetary
, meaning
related to money
, keeps the reference to the temple and the angry geese alive and well.

It’s only by an accident of propinquity that
money
is a
monster
. Perhaps you shouldn’t worry about it at all. Money’s not that bad. You shouldn’t be so frightened. Go on, take out that
death-pledge
. Sorry:
mortgage
.

Death-pledges

Anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage will be unsurprised to learn that it is, literally, a
death-pledge
. However, it’s the sort of thing you would only usually notice if you were taking out a mortgage on a
mort
uary.
Mort
is death, and
mort
al man has nothing else waiting for him. Nothing is certain in this life except death and mortgages.

The reason a mortgage is called a death-pledge is that it can die in two ways. You can pay off the whole thing, in which case the deal dies and you own your house. However, that happy ending is far from certain in these troubled and impoverished times. The other possibility is that you fail to make a payment, the deal dies, and your house is repossessed. The whole thing was spelt out in
mort
ifying terms in the
Institutes and Laws of England
in 1628: