The tempting thing is promise that words contain their histories and convey into the present their original meanings, filtered by our current knowledge of them. It is a kind of intellectual fetish where we don't need to know the actual history of the world - it is conveyed to us indelibly by the history and resonance of the words that we use.
I'm disappointed by posh, evil, good, and phoney. Phoney doesn't, apparently, mean a person whose identity one could not be certain of when they were talking on the phone, nor does posh, despite my grandmother's certainty, mean Port out Starboard Back. finally the coincidence of good and god and evil and devil appears quite devoid of message - simply wrapping one up in the boundaries of current discourse. Nietzsche's treatment of it in Beyond Good and Evil has singularly failed to capture my interest.
So why is it that etymology is so seductive? It allows us an intimate vision into history - the words we use everyday connect us to their history and reduce the banality of the world.
Posted by james at June 9, 2003 03:13 PM