By Jason Pickett
Etymology (the study of word origin) is perhaps one place where metaphor exists almost entirely. Etymology is in many people’s opinion one of the greatest single uses of metaphor, and one of the most useful employments of it as well. The metaphors contained in an etymological word, phrase or term, can be ultimately the best means of understanding how our ancestors thought about the world, and how ultimately the ideas have changed into having what we now have. This can show us how people from far off ages and other languages and cultures thought about the world and we can understand this directly from our own language. With this particular section we will look specifically at the etymology of Latin and Greek roots, particularly those of Latin. They cover a great deal of the same groupings that we have already, but also a great deal more. Most of these classical words from which we as English speakers acquire a great wealth of our own lexicon (or vocabulary), tend to have to a large extent similar metaphorical phrases from our own Germanic roots which we still use. An example of this would be the English word of Latin origin ‘stationary’ which comes from the Latin word meaning ‘to stand’, and when a soldier is stationary for instance, we tend to say he is ‘standing’ his post.
Often times the etymological metaphor of a word, even if we are not immediately familiar with the specific etymology, seems logical and totally understandable to us perhaps after a brief explanation of how it came to mean that. An example of this would be the English word ‘prostitute’ again the etymology means ‘to stand’ and the entire etymology would be ‘one who stands before (something)’. This means that a prostitute, or a person who sells their body sexually, must stand before those he is trying to sell his body to. A different example but of the same nature is the English word ‘promiscuity’, meaning to ‘mix around in front of’, this suggests something of one who mixes themselves around (sexually) and ultimately comes clear to understanding, once the idea has been explained. Also as before, we use English phrases to suggest something of the same metaphor in English as in “she is such a slut, she is always mixing around with every guy on the team”.
Some fields of etymological metaphors are easy for us to understand and relate to immediately, while others are perhaps not so easy. The metaphorical target domain of understanding presents itself etymologically in several ways especially in Latin. The English word ‘science’ comes from the Latin word meaning ‘to see’, thus having and acquiring knowledge about the universe is ultimately seeing and observing it. When we in English figure something out, or finally catch on to something, someone is trying to explain we often use the phrase ‘I see’ to express this. The word ‘comprehend’ comes from the Latin roots of ‘to hold or grasp together’ as we often use the phrase ‘to grasp a concept or idea’. The word ‘understand’ itself is of Germanic roots, but the etymology is entirely obvious with ‘under’ and ‘stand’, meaning that one is standing on top of what he knows, and thus owns it. The word ‘apprehend’ like ‘comprehend’ from Latin, means ‘to grasp’, but in this sense it means ‘to grasp in front of’. Also ‘suspect’ comes from a Latin root meaning ‘to see under’.
Often times with an etymology we can see how important a particular target or source domain really is, by seeing how many different synonyms and words they have that means the same thing. The Latin word of ‘to see’ is perfect in this function. The Latin word ‘to see’ has the base morphemes of: sci, spect, visi, vidi, and so on. So too, do we in English have a multitude of morphemes for ‘to see’, as it is so important here are some of the more common ones: to look, to see, to search, to watch, to ogle, to stare and so forth. Using only the morpheme ‘spect’ with as many words as can be thought of will be written within the next paragraph.
‘Inspect’- to see in
‘Aspect’- to look at
‘Introspect’- to look inside
‘Respect’- to look again
‘Prospect’- to look forward to
‘Expect’- to look out of
‘Suspect’- to look under
‘Retrospect’- to look back (in the past)
‘Disrespect’- to not look again to
All of these words are the most basic forms that the morpheme ‘spect’ can come in. This is just a small example of the importance that Romans as well as we must have, or have had on seeing, and understanding the world with it. Most of the above versions of words with ‘spect’ in it tend to be metaphorical, it should be pointed out, and to us as English speakers, it may not always be possible to understand immediately where the Romans were coming from, but often times we can still understand and even relate to the words they used.
In consideration of all of the facts explored so far with the addition of the fact that most Latin and Greek words in English are derived from much more concrete ideas to form abstract ones, we shall look at the implications to those who are so misfortunate to be ignorant to the origins and etymologies of this blessed English language. What this means is that those who perhaps do not realize that the abstract words of Latin and Greek origin come from smaller and more concrete concepts, may be more likely to understand abstractions by themselves. This means that because they are not aware of this fact, that they may actually come to take the abstract words to be seen by them as abstract, even though the actual words may be constructed on more concrete metaphorical concepts. This would suggest that perhaps humans can think in abstract concepts by themselves, and are not limited to thinking of things in terms of their own experience. Of course none of this has actually been researched professionally, but it is a point worth taking into consideration for future study.
Etymology as stated several times above is almost entirely composed of concrete concepts ultimately, and thus all abstract concepts are made metaphorical in turn. Several examples of this could be presented further, and when seen in a book of etymology, nearly every word would present itself in the same manner as etymologically metaphorical. Occasionally one may find words that seem abstract in nature, but those words tend to still and finally come from concrete concepts. One example of this is the English word ‘spirit’, because we would tend to think of that as ‘soul’ in origin because we know it comes from the Latin word ‘spiritus’, and it means the same thing in Latin. ‘Spirit’ however comes from the Latin word ‘spire’, meaning ‘to breath’ we get other words in English like ‘aspiration’ and ‘perspiration’ and so forth, from the same root. ‘Soul’ incidentally comes from an Old English word meaning ‘belonging to the sea’, because in their beliefs, that is where the soul goes when one dies.
It is always important to keep in mind the value and significance of etymology to one’s own life from day to day. Any word spoken that we know of, has a definite history, and knowing that history is always important and useful to those who choose to apply that knowledge well. The knowledge of bases, prefixes and suffices from other words can help us often to dissect words we know, and understand and appreciate their original meanings more, and can greatly increase our vocabulary and use of words. This can be important to remember the history, so that we may never forget where we came from as a culture, and it is entirely fascinating besides. If you the reader, decide to look into etymology, notice just how much use of metaphor there really is.
This section unfortunately does not really represent the fullest extent to which metaphor is used in etymology. In the opinion of the author, etymology can scarcely be represented enough anyway. There are several more examples of how it is used in metaphor in most dictionaries, and it is highly recommended to look at them. Etymology represents itself with the same concepts and ideas in metaphor as we have seen in the rest of the text previous. In future, etymology will continue to find itself performing the same functions for the languages of times to come, as it does in our language now. Metaphor shall only ingrain itself all the more as words continue to evolve and become more abstract and less coherent to us, who speak it now.