Etymology of Love

Does it ever cross your mind that, when you die, someone will probably search your computer’s web browser and find out all your nasty little secrets? All your weird little google searches and favorite pages…what would they find?

Before you post answers below about what you THINK I mean, let me clarify.

 

What subject would your computer records say interests you the most? Maybe most of your web searches are for vacation rentals. Maybe you google shoes. Recipes for diabetics. I don’t know. I can only answer for myself.

And for me, the answer would be “etymology of…”

I type it in several times a day, with different words. “Etymology of ‘licentious.’” “Etymology of ‘groovy.’” “Etymology of ‘etymology.’”

I am fascinated with words. I want to know where they came from, when they came into use, how the diagram tree breaks down, what part of speech they are, how they’re used in a sentence, and (have I already lost half of you??) their definitions—then and now. When I die, my computer will lay to rest the huge debate—finally—over whether I am, in fact, a nerd. (Noun, from the 1950s, origin unknown.)

I bring it up only because a member of my extended family--someone who means quite a lot to me—faces some new horizons soon. This person is scared about these new horizons. I use the word “scared” because change is frightening. But a better word might be “apprehensive,” which means anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen.

So I typed in “etymology of apprehensive,” just to confirm that I had chosen the best word for this situation.

And because I’m a nerd.

The word actually hails from late Middle English (who knew? Right??!) So it’s been around a while, like a long while—since the 1400s. Our English word springs from the Latin word “apprehendere” and from the medieval Latin word “apprehensivus.” Along that same Medieval Latin timeline came the French word “apprehensif” (with an accent grave or aigu over that first “e”...sorry Miss Morgan, I forget my basic French). The word originally meant “to seize or to grasp.” The cool little diagram tree is pasted below for your enjoyment:

 

 

So if “apprehensive” really means to seize or grasp, as in without fear, as in wholeheartedly, as in with everything you got, then that puts a whole new spin on my family member’s new horizon. Apprehension is not fear and loathing. It isn’t that little sick burp you taste in your mouth when you’re so nervous you’re afraid you might puke. Apprehension is quite the opposite, apparently. Something to be pursued.

So I was wrong about that. Wonder what else I was wrong about. About which I was wrong.

Could my definition of “horizon” also be erroneous? I wondered. Maybe “horizon” doesn’t mean boundlessness. Maybe that’s the wrong word to use for my family member’s new horizons. Better check….

I typed in “etymology of horizon” and damned if I didn’t miss that one too. The original definition was not what I expected. Again, just the opposite. Horizon meant “limiting.”

Hmmm. Square One again. I thought I knew more about this stuff. Maybe I should search the etymology of “knowitall.”

Isn’t a horizon something to pursue? Isn’t a horizon something to be seized, and grasped?! Something to charge into with verve, as if everything depended on getting that thing for yourself? Something of excitement, and value, and warm fuzzies and Darius Rucker singing, “It’s awlright”?

Apparently not in late middle England.

Then I remembered something I read while researching my novel. It’s a quote from William Penn, founding father of the Pennsylvania colony back in the late 1600’s. It is also a funeral prayer: the time when most of us feel our saddest, as if everything has been lost. Hopelessness and grief crowd out everything else.

Penn said:

“We give back to you, O God, those whom you gave to us. You did not lose them when you gave them to us, and we do not lose them by their return to you. Your dear Son has taught us that life is eternal and love cannot die. So death is only an horizon and an horizon is only the limit of our sight.”

A horizon is only the limit of our sight. We can’t see around that bend, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t something wonderful waiting for us there.

There’s so much hope in that, don’t you think? That just because we can’t see around the curve, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, ready to be seized, welcoming us, and offering so much more than we could ask or imagine? Horizons, then—those  limited views of ours—are  something to charge into, to chase apprehensively, to seize and grasp without fear and trepidation. With everything you’ve got.

So to my family member, I say, Grab your future. I love you. I know what you're capable of. Of what you are capable.

 

I'll see you around that bend.