Welcome to the Endless Knot! From the Great Chain of Being to bribery & corruption,
today we’re talking about ambition and tracing the changing language of politics through
the ages. Times change, and so do words. Generally today we think of ambition as a
positive thing, as in “the ambitious young go-getter”, but when the word entered the
English language from French in the 14th century, it started out with the negative sense of
“greed for success” — for instance the bishop Reginald Peacock writ
es about vices
such as “pride, ambition, and vainglory” in the 15th century, and in the 16th writer
Thomas Nashe calls ambition “any puft up greedy humour of honour or preferment”. You see to the medieval mind ambition, wanting
to rise in the world, was a sin. God put people, and indeed everything in creation,
into a rigid hierarchical order, and you were where you were because God wanted you there. This notion is called the Great Chain of Being,
with God at the very top, and in descending order
the ranks of angels, people, animals,
plants, and objects. So if you’re a peasant, trying to become
a lord is going against God’s plans. Even in Milton’s poem Paradise Lost written
in the 17th century, Satan’s sin in rebelling against God stems from “pride and worse
ambition”. But gradually a less pejorative sense of the
word came to be used more and more, as less negative ideas about ambition spread as well,
and by the beginning of the 19th century Milton’s figure of Satan was being reinterpre
ted by
the Romantic poets, like Byron and Shelley, as a heroic figure. And while today the negative sense of ambition
is still possible (for example, ambition is often criticized in women), the positive sense
is the more common, with the pejorative sense having to be made explicit in phrases such
as “overly ambitious”. But where does the word ambition actually
come from? It’s a kind of metaphor, coming from Latin
ambitio from the verb ambire which literally means “to go around” from ambi- “aroun
d
or about” and the verb ire “to go”. This figurative sense grew out of Roman politics. You see if a Roman were running for political
office he would go about soliciting votes and support. And so ambitio came to mean canvassing for
votes, which could involve flattery and even bribery, so that laws were passed to try to
control it. Thus ambitio came to develop the sense of
corruption or greed for office, which is how it passed through medieval Latin and French
into the pejorative sense in English
in the 14th century. Of course today we don’t think of canvassing
as an underhanded action, it’s a legitimate part of the political process, another example
of changing values. But etymologically speaking, anyways, canvassing
used to be part of quite a different process. You see canvass the activity comes from canvas
the cloth and originally refers to tossing something about in a canvas sheet as you might
with a small child as a game, and perhaps also to a kind of winnowing process, separating
grain from chaff. From this it developed the metaphorical sense
of “to discuss or examine something thoroughly”, and from there somehow (though no one’s
quite sure how) the modern sense of “to solicit votes”. By the way, the noun canvas comes through
Latin cannabis ultimately from a root referring to the fibre hemp, also the source of those
English words—which reminds me of the Liberal campaign plank in the last Canadian election
about legalizing marijuana. Though the incumbent Conservative gove
rnment
accused their rivals of over-permissiveness, it didn’t stop the Liberals from winning
the election, another example of changing values I suppose. Speaking of cloth and textiles, it’s from
this area that we get another common electioneering term, taking us once again to the world of
ancient Roman elections. One running for office in Roman elections
was commonly called a canditatus, giving us the English word candidate. Candidatus literally means “white” coming
from a root meaning “to shine
”, and refers to the extra-white toga the candidate would
wear when canvassing for those votes, symbolizing his purity. We also get the word candid from this root,
a quality modern candidates certainly wish to project in their campaigns. The candidatus would have with him in his
canvassing a slave called a nomenclator (literally “name caller”) whose job it was to know
the names of all the electors the candidate talked to. From the same root, by the way, we get the
English word nomenclature. Oh,
and the more formal nomenclature for a
candidatus is a petitor, from the root petere ‘to seek, attack’, and fellow candidates
are called competitores, from which we get competitors. So in the competitive democratic process there’s
an etymological justification for those attack ads, if not an ethical one. Speaking of the democratic process, the word
democracy comes from Greek and is often explained as literally meaning “rule of the people”. The first part, demos, meaning “people”
or perhaps more
accurately “the common people”, comes from a Proto-Indo-European root that
means “to divide”, and so means a group in the sense of a part. Fitting I guess, since in the original ancient
Athenian democracy, only the free-born Athenian male segment of the population had the right
to vote. We could set the word democracy against the
word monarchy, literally “rule of one” mono- meaning “one” in Greek. But you’ll notice that the second part of
monarchy comes from the root *arkhein- meaning “to begin,
rule, command”, thus appropriately
the source of political power. But the second element of the word democracy,
Greek kratos, means “strength” and has connotations of violence, coming ultimately
from a Proto-Indo-European root that means “hard”. And indeed though today we tend to think of
democracy in mostly positive terms, the same was not true in ancient Greece, where attitudes
to democracy were decidedly mixed. Indeed philosophers such as Aristotle and
Plato, much vaunted today, were quite c
ritical of democracy, which they might almost gloss
as “mob rule”. Again, an example of how values have changed. Today of course, from this same root we also
get the word Democrat to refer to one of two main political parties in the United States. Funny thing is, the Democratic party used
to be the Republican party. Until 1828, the Democratic Party used to be
called the Democratic-Republican Party or simply the Republican Party, until the word
Republican was dropped. In fact the term “democratic
” was initially
an insult, associating them with populism tantamount to mob rule, until the party decided
to embrace their populist associations and dropped the word “republican” from their
name. Then in 1854 the Republican Party we know
today was formed from Democrats and Whig Party members who opposed slavery. On the other hand, until well into the 20th
century the Democratic Party used to represent a politically conservative constituency. Once again, funny how things change. By the way, we ha
ve 19th century caricaturist
Thomas Nast to thank for popularizing the Democratic donkey and inventing the Republican
elephant. The donkey was originally a pun on President
Jackson’s name — think jack ass — and was used as a criticism implying stubbornness,
until the party itself adopted the symbol for its common-man implications. Turns out there really is a lot of flip-flopping
in politics! Oh, & that name Republican? The word republic come from Latin res meaning
“thing” and publica “public”, s
o literally the “public thing”. Latin publicus is related to another Latin
word populus, close in sense to Greek demos, thus meaning “people” — in fact we get
the English word “people” through Anglo-Norman French from the same Latin word — and of
course we can see the word popular in there as well, reminding us of the popularism that
was such a sticking point in the political attitudes of both the ancient world and 19th
century America. Another word for a popularist is a demagogue
formed from th
at same Greek word demos. The US government was in some ways consciously
modelled on the republic of ancient Rome, hence the cachet of the word republican in
American political circles from early on. But getting back to the election trails, we
can see an interesting etymological parallel to the Latin-formed word republic. When candidates are out canvassing, we can
say that they are on the hustings. The word husting comes from Old Norse hus
meaning “house” and ðing meaning, well, “thing”. But thi
ng also used to have the sense of “meeting”
or “council”, so the hus-ðing was the meeting house, and the plural hustings came
to refer to temporary platforms for political speeches, and then the campaigning process
itself. Coming originally from a Proto-Indo-European
root meaning “stretch” the word thing came to have the sense of time, as in a stretch
of time, in early Germanic, and from that the appointed time for the meeting of a judicial
or legislative assembly, and then the assembly itself.
From there thing transferred in sense from
the subject matter of the assembly to any matter or thing. A long way to go for such an unprepossessing
word! In Old Norse the main judicial and legislative
assembly was called the Althing, literally the “all-meeting” and this is still the
name of the current national parliament of Iceland, making it arguably the oldest extant
democracy (though there are competing claims for that title). Another contribution to political language
that ON has made is, su
rprisingly, in the vocabulary of Canadian politics. The common name for an electoral district
in Canada is a riding. Though there’s a folk etymology that this
comes from the idea that it’s the area a rider can cover in a single day, the true
source of the word is Old Norse þriðjungr, literally a “third part” of something. Originally referring to the three districts
into which Yorkshire, England is divided, riding is preserved in the specialized sense
of an electoral district in Canadian English.
The root of politics is the ancient Greek
city state—literally. The ancient Greek polis means city state,
from a Proto-Indo-European root that means “citadel, fortified high place”. We also get the word policy from this same
Greek root, and policies should really be the main focus for any politician. By the way, the word police likewise comes
from this root, as their main job is maintaining civil order. In ancient Athens, politics and policy were
supposed to be important to all the citizens, as
it was a direct democracy, meaning that
the people voted not for politicians, political representatives, but directly for policy,
such as new laws or other affairs of state. Of course in practise some citizens with more
expert knowledge tended to lead the politics and policy, while many individuals, although
they did their duty and voted, tended to be more concerned with their own private affairs
than the affairs of state. And for that reason they were termed idiotes,
from a root that means “pe
rsonal, private”. We get the words idiom and idiosyncrasy from
this root as well as the word idiot, because the word came to be used pejoratively of people
who didn’t take an interest in the city’s affairs. When early 20th century psychologist and eugenicist
Henry Goddard devised categories of mental retardation on the basis of IQ scores, he
termed those with scores between 0 and 25 idiots, 26 to 50 imbeciles, and 51 to 70 morons,
but these terms are now considered offensive, another example of
changing values. So while we shouldn’t call people who don’t
concern themselves with the affairs of state idiots, this etymology does highlight the
importance of being aware of the policies of our modern political world. In our modern democracies we no longer vote
directly on our laws as the ancient Athenians did, but instead elect legislators, politicians
who enact laws, for that purpose. The words elect and election from Latin ex-
and legere literally mean “to pick out”. That Latin verb legere
, which also gives us
words such as select, collect, neglect, elegant and elite (think picked out from the crowd),
also had a secondary meaning of “to read” whence the words legible and lecture. If we go back further to Proto-Indo-European
we come to a root which means “to collect”, which also probably leads to another Latin
word lex meaning “law” from the idea of a collection of laws. We inherited this root in the English words
legal and legislate, so there is an etymological connection in thos
e legislators seeking election. Although the word law looks a bit similar
to this root, it’s actually etymologically unconnected coming through Old Norse from
a root which means “to lay”, as laws are something laid down. Once we’ve gone to the polls we say we’ve
given our elected officials a mandate to govern. The word poll, coming into English in the
13th century, originally meant “head”, and came from a Middle Dutch word that meant
“top, summit”. By the 17th century the word had developed
its
“collection of votes” sense from the idea of counting heads. But that’s not the only body part in political
vocabulary, because mandate comes from the Latin words manus “hand” and dare “to
give” so literally to put in the hand — the word command by the way is also from the same
source — and this word nicely suggests that the power politicians wield truly comes from
the electorate, so make sure you get out and vote. These body words might suggest another metaphor
for the structure of society, the
body politic, with the head of state and the citizen body. But getting back to classical influences on
the US political system, one of the most notable examples is the legislative body called the
Senate, which takes its name from the ancient Roman Senatus, which started as an appointed
council of elders, then, as a body of ex-magistrates, became one of the chief governmental institutions
in Rome. And if looking at the make-up of the US Senate
makes you think they’re just a bunch of old white gu
ys, you’re not far from the
truth etymologically speaking. Not only did most of them start off as a candidatus,
Senate comes from a root that means “old”, related to the words senior—reflecting the
value the Romans placed on the wisdom of their elders—and senile, which may suggest something
about how modern values have shifted. Not that senators are senile of course! The US Senate along with the House of Representatives
together make up Congress, a word that comes from Latin roots but does not r
eflect a Roman
institution. Coming from com- meaning together and gradi
“to go, step”, congress is thus related to other step words such as gradual, grade
and progress. The Latin word congressus could mean “a
(friendly) meeting” or “a hostile encounter” — I’ll leave it to you to decide which
applies to the US Congress! — but it’s another example of the changing
senses of words over time. Both the Latin and English words can also
refer to a sexual encounter, which of course is entirely irrelevant
to politics. The more specialized sense of a “meeting
of delegates” dates from the 17th century, and the political assembly sense from the
18th. Other English-speaking countries like Britain,
Canada & Australia, instead of having a Congress like the US, have parliaments as their national
deliberative bodies. We get the word parliament from the Anglo-Norman
French of the middle ages, the word parler meaning “talk”, which some might say is
all they do in parliaments! By the way, from this root we
also get the
words parlance, parley, and parlour (evidently a room set aside for conversation). But it’s not just the word that has a medieval
connection.When the old medieval Westminster Palace, which at that point housed the British
parliament, burned down in 1834, it was replaced by the current buildings built in the Gothic
Revival style, with medieval-style pointed arches and elongated vertical proportions,
thus symbolically reaffirming the British commitment to the medieval institution of
the monarchy in the face of the trend towards revolution and republicanism in places like
the United States and France. Compare this with the American Capitol Hill,
in its neo-classical style with Greek pillars and Roman rounded arches. Unlike the US, Canada did not rebel from British
rule, and so fittingly the Canadian Parliament Buildings are also built in the Gothic style. Etymology, architecture, and history all going
hand in hand! Incidentally if we dig further back in the
etymology of parl
iament, we see that the word comes through Latin from Greek parabole meaning
“comparison”, from para meaning “beside” and ultimately a Proto-Indo-European root
meaning “to throw”. In addition to obviously parabola and parable,
this Indo-European root also gives us such words as symbol, devil, kill, and problem
(make of that what you will), as well as the word ball, not the round thing you throw but
the dance. But it’s the other type of ball that we
turn to finally, as it’s related to another ele
ction word, ballot, which we inherited
from Italian. You see to have a secret vote (a word which
by the way comes from Latin meaning promise or wish), one would once drop a small coloured
ball into a container (the colour black often indicating a negative vote thus giving us
the term blackballed). The Proto-Indo-European root that lies behind
this word, meaning “to blow, inflate, or swell” also gives us such words as fool,
phallus, and bollocks (a somewhat rude British term for testicles). But l
est we cynically decide that politicians
are a bunch of foolish blowhard dicks talking bollocks, instead we might remind ourselves
when we cast our ballots to elect someone with the ambition to become our political
representative that, though a society’s values may change over time, and the language
change with it, a vote still should be able to force those politicians to carry out the
will of the people. It’s the democratic way, after all. Thanks for watching! If you’ve enjoyed these etymologic
al explorations
and cultural connections, please subscribe to this channel or share it; you can also
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