aegis

I was watching an American medical drama called ‘New Amsterdam’ the other day (I love me an American medical drama – ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is my absolute fave). During a courtroom scene with a patient with some mental-health struggles, a judge said ‘I’m not willing to to release you into your own aegis’. My first thought was of course, ‘why not use a word that everyone can understand, silly legal person?’. And my second was, ‘I wonder where “aegis” comes from?’ Well, it turns out it has quite an interesting backstory.

In the context of the silly legal person, ‘aegis’ simply means ‘protection, sponsorship or support of a person, group or organisation’. Its other, much more fun, definition is ‘a shield or breastplate associated with Zeus and Athena’. And that’s where our etymology comes from.

In Greek mythology, aegises also included cloaks, and were often described as powerful and protective. Some of them featured the head of the Gorgon, she of the bad snake-hair day. The word itself comes from a noun, ‘aigis’, which means ‘goatskin’. This is probably just because cloaks were often made of goatskin, but it might (it probably isn’t TBH, but I wanted to tell this story) be something to do with the mythical goat Amalthea. Rhea, Zeus’ Ma, hid him in a cave to protect him from his father Cronus, who was a bit of a nutter known for eating his own children (someone call social services). Amalthea nursed (yep, fed) and cared for the infant Zeus in the cave. Hence, goats = protection.

Aegis made its way into English in the 18th century in the sense of those protective shields or cloaks. It later evolved into the idea of protection, sponsorship or support, and a silly legal term.

To say thanks for looking after him in that cave, Zeus later transformed one of Amalthea’s horns into the Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty, which could provide an endless supply of food and drink. I’m not sure how this worked logistically – surely it would need to be detached from Amalthea’s head to provide all that chow? That doesn’t seem like much of a thank you.

Zeus – DTF

Zeus was also a bit of a dirty old (and young) man. One of his favourite things to do was to transform himself into something else to have sex with both mortals and immortals. This included transforming into a swan, a bull and a shower of gold. I’m definitely not going to try to work out the logistics of that…

sarcophagus

Tis the season for ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties, with Halloween (or Hallowe’en if we’re being grammatically correct) just around the corner. So the word of the week is also jumping on the spooky bandwagon with ‘sarcophagus’.

A sarcophagus is a type of stone container or coffin, usually made of limestone, marble or something similar. They were particularly popular in ancient Egypt as people believed that bodies should be preserved, and sarcophagi were good protection for those mummified remains.

The word itself actually has Greek origins. It comes from ‘sarx’ (σάρξ) meaning ‘flesh’, and ‘phagein’ meaning ‘to eat’ or ‘to consume’. So sarcophagus actually translates as ‘flesh eating’. Yum. Why? Well, the term was originally used to refer to a particular type of limestone that was believed to decompose or consume the flesh of the deceased more quickly. And unlike the Egyptians, many religions saw this as a good thing as it would speed up the journey to the afterlife.

The word ‘sarcophagus’ was adopted into Latin as ‘sarcophagus’ (which was very unimaginative). From there it passed into various European languages, including our own, keeping its meaning as a stone coffin or tomb, but losing the whole flesh-eating bit.

One of the most famous sarcophagi in history belonged to Tutankhamun, or King Tut, whose mummy was discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings. Tut was actually entombed in a series of ornate sarcophagi, with the innermost one being made of solid mother-flipping gold.

Tut facts:

• he was only around 18 or 19 years old when he died, so didn’t actually get to do much pharaoh-ing

• no one really knows what killed him – theories include complications after a leg injury or a genetic disorder

• a few people died after the discovery of Tut’s tomb giving rise to the legend of the ‘Curse of the Pharaohs’ (and lots of terrible horror films). One of those was Lord Carnarvon, a financial backer of Carter’s expedition who died from an infected mozzie bite shortly after the tomb was opened. His half brother also died not long afterwards (of blood poisoning) as did his secretary, and two other members of the expedition. Howard Carter didn’t shuffle off for another 17 years or so though, so it wasn’t a very good curse.

lemma

A lemma is a term or phrase that’s being defined or explained. Huh? Here it is in action – when you look up a word in a dictionary or, more likely these days, type a word into a dictionary search bar, the word you’re typing is called a lemma.

Lemma has its origins in ancient Greek. It’s derived from the Greek word ‘λῆμμα’ which means ‘something taken’, ‘an assumption’ or ‘a proposition’. It’s the noun (person, place or thing) form of the verb (doing word) ‘λαμβάνω’, or ‘lambanō’, which means ‘to take’.

The plural of lemma is either ‘lemmas’ or, if you’re feeling a bit arcane, ‘lemmata’. And it’s also where we get the word ‘dilemma’ from – which is ‘lemma’ in the sense of a proposition, with ‘di’ meaning ‘two’ at the start – two propositions.

All of this emma-based etymology caused me to ask ChatGPT what my name means. He told me it comes from the Germanic word ‘ermen’ or ‘irmin’, which means ‘whole’ or ‘universal’. He went on to say that Emma is ‘a classic name that carries a sense of timelessness and elegance’. Fingers crossed he wasn’t just buttering me up before he steals my job and brings about Judgement Day.

If you’re not a fan of ‘lemma’, another word for a term being defined is a ‘definiendum’. It’s fun to say, and will deffo make you sound like a smarty pants. You’re welcome.

tragedy

You know what a tragedy is – a sad or traumatic event. It’s also a genre of literature, art or performance that deals with serious and sad themes, and probably everyone dies at the end.

The word ‘tragedy’ has a bit of a tragic backstory as well. Brace yourselves…

(It’s not that bad really. I’m just building the tension.)

Don’t mention Greek plays

‘Tragedy’ comes from the Greek word ‘tragōidia’, which is a combination of ‘tragos’, meaning ‘goat’, and ‘ōidē’, meaning ‘song’ or ‘ode’. This is linked to ancient Greece (although you probably could have guessed that), where tragic plays were an important part of cultural and religious festivals. These plays often dealt with serious and weighty themes, and were accompanied by a chorus of people who sang and danced (seriously and weightily, presumably).

So that gives us the song/ode bit – but what about the goat? Well, those ancient Greekies often sacrificed a goat or two during these performances to honour the god Dionysus, who was associated with theatre (also, wine and fertility). I hope they waited till the interval so they didn’t put the actors off.

That was all a bit depressing, wasn’t it? Sorry about that. Here’s some Steps to cheer you up. Good luck not doing the dance.

pognophile

Spoiler alert

Any word with ‘phile’ on the end immediately looks vaguely threatening, doesn’t it? Luckily, in this case, it’s fairly innocuous. A pognophile is someone who (hopefully in a healthy way) really likes beards. It has a pretty wide definition, and can include anyone who loves growing their own beard, beards on other people and even those who study beards (because apparently that’s a thing).

Etymology wise it’s quite a straightforward one. ‘Pogon’ is the Greek work for ‘beard’, while ‘phile’ is a suffix we put on the end of words to show that someone loves the thing that comes before it (if that makes sense). ‘Phile’ comes from another Greek word, ‘philos’ which means ‘to love’. If you’re scared of beards, you’re a pognophobe, poor you.

The longest beard in the world belonged to one Hans Nilson Langseth (born in 1846), a Norwegian man whose facial hair was a whopping 17 feet and 6 inches long (that’s 5.334 metres in new money). If you fancy having a go at beating his record you should probably get started now though – it took him 60 years to grow it that long. Apparently beard hair dies once it gets past about five feet. So you have to mat the dead hair at the end into dreadlocks to make it strong enough to keep growing. Ewww, I bet there was all sorts of crap in there. And somebody probably knows exactly how much crap there was in there, as the beard (sadly now sans Hans) is in the Smithsonian. You can see a picture of it in all its glory (and still attached to Hans) here.

pareidolia

We’ve probably all experienced pareidolia to some extent. Don’t worry, it isn’t another world-ending pandemic. Pareidolia is the word for when we humans find shapes in abstract patterns or inanimate objects. So when you next see a face in the trunk of a tree or a penis in the clouds (come on, we’ve all done it. No? Just me?) you’ll be able to show off to whoever you’re with that you’re experiencing pareidolia. It also applies to sounds – so if you think you’re hearing a hidden message in a piece of music, you probably aren’t – it’s just that pesky pareidolia.

Etymology-wise, the word itself is unsurprisingly Greek: para means ‘beside, alongside, instead [of]’ and eidōlon means ‘image, form, shape’.

So why do we do it? Evolutionary psychologists reckon that pareidolia helped our ancestors survive. There are two reasons for this. One is that babies who couldn’t recognise faces smiled less, which meant their parents cared about them less (mean). So they evolved to recognise faces to make sure their ma and pa would love them and, ultimately, protect them. The second one is to do with predators – in (very) simple terms, you’re more likely to run away from something that has a face than something that doesn’t. So it makes sense to see a face in anything that’s potentially threatening and just peg it.

Pareidolia used to be considered a sign of madness. And studies do show that people suffering from neuroses are more likely to experience it, as are people who in a negative mood. That might be because when we’re pissed off we’re on higher alert for danger, so more likely to see things that aren’t there. Women are also more likely to experience pareidolia, which is possibly due to the fact that we’re generally better than men. Sorry, better than men at using facial expressions to recognise emotions.

One of the most famous examples of pareidolia is the face on Mars. Located in the Cydonia region of the planet, it was first photographed by the Viking 1 spacecraft on 25 July 1976.

It’s a face on Mars!

Oh no it isn’t.

And in 2004, a ten-year-old cheese sandwich which supposedly has the image of the Virgin Mary burned on it sold for $28,000 on eBay. Where there’s pareidolia there’s brass, apparently…

idiot

Alongside ‘moron’*, ‘idiot’ is one of my favourite non-sweary insults. But where does it come from? Turns out it’s derived from an Ancient Greek word, idiōtēs, which means ‘private person’. That doesn’t mean that idiōtēs didn’t want to go out (remember going out?), but that they didn’t have much to do with public affairs and the government. ‘Idiom’ (i.e. a word or phrase which is unique to a group of people or a place) also comes from the same root, as does ‘idiosyncrasy’ (a quirky thing that’s unique to one person), which makes sense when you think about the whole ‘private’ meaning.

Back to idiōtēs. As I said, an idiōtēs was basically just a normal – anyone who wasn’t a soldier, scribe, judge, politician, etc. But, people who weren’t idiōtēs saw them as the opposite of ‘citizens’. And because of this, ye olde Greeks soon started using the term to refer to people who they thought weren’t clever enough to talk about politics and public affairs. From this, it wasn’t long until ‘idiot’ began to take on the meaning we know today.

So, idiot. More than just a stupid person.

* While writing this post I discovered that ‘moron’ has some slightly shady origins. It, alongside ‘imbecile’, ‘cretin’ and ‘retard’, were once scientific terms used in psychology and psychiatry for people with mild intellectual disabilities. And they were also favourite terms of the American eugenics movement when pushing for enforced sterilisation. So that’s nice. With the exception of ‘retard’ (which most people now agree is pretty offensive), these have now slipped into the vernacular. But does that mean they’re okay to use? I DON’T KNOW.

sycophant

Photo by Deidre Schlabs on Unsplash.

You know what a sycophant is – someone who sucks up to someone else to get an advantage. Also known as a toady, creep, lickspittle and so on. But it hasn’t always meant that. Previously, a sychophant was someone who accused someone else of being a fig-smuggler. Nope, this isn’t another name for Speedos – it dates all the way back to classical Athens (which was a long time ago y’all).

So, way back in the sixth century (I said it was a long time ago), Athens law didn’t let anyone export food (apart from olives, because that would just be mean) outside its borders. Apparently this was torture for some fig-loving souls, who broke the law by smuggling the fruit* out. Unlike food transportation, blackmail wasn’t against the law (that’s some effed-up legal system right there). So if someone busted you leaving town with your pockets full of figs, they’d threaten to tell the fuzz about it. These blackmailers were called sykophantes, which translates as ‘revealer of figs’.

(At this point I should probably say that Wikipedia reckons this is a load of old cobblers, as there’s no concrete proof for the whole thing. But ‘sykophantes’ does mean ‘revealer of figs’, and Plutarch (Greek scholar and all round clever dude) said it was true, so let’s just go with it. Because the other explanations are nowhere near as interesting.)

I’ve just realised I’ve never had a fig.

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*Interesting fact alert: A fig isn’t technically a fruit – it’s an ‘inverted flower’. And they only exist because of the fig wasp. (Warning: this is gross, sorry. Brace yourself.)

Female wasps clamber inside figs to lay their eggs. It’s a one-way trip – getting in rips their wings off (I told you it was gross). Once the eggs are laid, the wasp dies. The baby wasps grow up inside the fig then mate (wait, aren’t they all related? Ewww). Then the boys die (they’re born without any wings, so their only job is to get their rocks off with their sisters), and the females fly out of the fig, all covered in pollen, off to find a male fig of their own to do the whole thing again. But, PLOT TWIST: figs have genders, and only the male ones have the special egg area (not what it’s called) the wasps need to lay in. So as long as Mrs Wasp sets up shop in a male fig, everything’s fine (apart from the whole wing-ripping, dying part). But if she ends up in a female fig, she’s a bit screwed. So, she just dies, with no babies. But the good news is, she does pollinate the fig with the pollen she bought with her. Which means more figs, I think (I’m not a scientist, okay?).

Us humans only eat female figs (I’m not sure how you tell the difference – maybe they get paid less than their male counterparts), which contain an enzyme that digests the bits of dead wasp. But because of the absolute horror show mentioned above, a lot of vegans don’t eat them at all. And I don’t think I’ll be trying one any time soon.