WordPlay

by Kevin Cox

This column presents adventures in etymology,
or the study of the origins of words and phrases.

It's September, and that means back to school! So in this issue I'll look at the origin of words from the scholarly realm.

School
The word school originates, naturally, from the Greek-the Old English schol or scola ("place for instruction") came from the Greek word skhole, meaning "leisure, philosophy, lecture-place." Apparently the old Greek philosophers' leisurely, old-boy's club style of education never really caught on with more modern day scholars …

Smoot
For those readers who are really scholastic: A smoot is a unit of measurement (5' 7"), devised by some pranksters at MIT. The length of the Harvard Bridge in Boston is 364.4 smoots, plus or minus an ear (the ear stands for epsilon). Apparently, the smoot began with a fraternity prank in 1958 during which the body length of Oliver Smoot (class of '62) was actually used to measure out that distance, by flipping Mr. Smoot end over end. It is commemorated by smoot marks that MIT students repaint every few years. The Boston police have been known to use smoot markers to indicate accident locations on the bridge.

Dunce
The dunce today refers to a person who "shows no capacity for learning." John Duns Scotus was an early 16th Century scholastic theologian whose works were used as university textbooks; his students were called Scotists, and were prevalent in scholastic circles. In the late 16th Century, humanists and reformers dominated the scene, and they ridiculed the Scotists. They came to refer to Scotus' followers as Dunsmen or dunses; the Dunsmen, in their turn, rallied against the "new learning," and the name duns became synonymous with "hair-splitter," or "stubborn person." From there, duns (dunce) evolved into its present meaning.

Educate
The verb educate comes from Middle English, and is derived from the Latin word educare, meaning "to raise or bring up children." Educare is related to educere, which means "to lead out." Educere has given rise to the English word "educe" (this is a new word for me), which means "to develop something latent."

Sources

The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/

Kevin Cox, Editor of The Willamette Galley, is a technical writer, composer, and musician, and has been a member of STC since 2000. He enjoys the outdoors, music, genealogy, and playing with words. He can be reached at knccomm@yahoo.com.