I find it interesting to hear the roots and origins of words – language is an amazing thing and the way names of people and places enter the lexicon is fascinating. How people exclaimed when google became a verb and yet for hundreds of years names have became so synonymous with actions or characteristics that they become verbs or adjectives.
I remember in a short story many years ago having, in unforgivable ignorance, used the word ‘quisling’ as an insult only to later learn of Vidkun Quisling and realise that this fabulous insult had only became such thanks to the treachery of that one man. Unless he was a prophet my seventeenth century courtier had no business at all using it.
Another word that’s original meaning had passed me by is laconic; named after the people of Laconia or, to you and I, the Spartans. It was the flair for the concise put down of a militant Greek tribe over two and a half millennia ago that gave us the word. The short pithy humour was no later romantic invention, in fact even Plato observed it at the time.
I think my favourite of the many famous Spartan retorts is that given to Philip II of Macedon who sent the ultimatum:
“You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.”
The Spartan reply was simple and to the point.
“If.”
I don’t know who was working at international relations for Sparta that day but that is classy; to manage to sum up your meaning in one word is good but to do so in such style that it is itself a living demonstration of it – that is Spartan. And for the record Philip didn’t. All of this is before we even get to King Leonidas who, not content with immortality on the field of battle, endeavoured to be a laconic wit too. Thermopylae was his stage for the kind of classic lines that tell you all you need to know of the three hundred without the need for any over-stylised Hollywood gore fest. (Now is not the place for my opinion on excessive violence as a substitute for good narrative in modern film.)
Anyway, this appealed to my love of history and my love of words so I had to share it.
Ah! You should have grown up in my house! – with two Classicists as parents, we were always surrounded by explanations of “from the Greek…” or “from the Latin…” (not to mention countless corrections of our grammar!)
Quite a privilege now I think about it, but at the time… well education is wasted on the young, as they say!
Huwey – it’s true, when we’re young we want to go graze our knees playing and then when we’re older we wonder why we couldn’t have paid that bit more attention. Your parents must have known some really fascinating stuff.
Ah, the good old Spartans! This reminds me of a short-story assignment in school, age c. 14. The English teacher requested that we submit stories under the title of ‘The Cricket Match’, with no further stipulations. One smart alec submitted the following story:
‘Rain stopped play.’
He got an A.
Oh, that is priceless. I like that, a small victory for those who are both lazy and yet ingenious!