Bride of the Word Geek
Okay, so I've just done this adaptation of Macbeth, right? (That's just sinking in, by the way.) And there's this line that Banquo says when approaching Macbeth's house with Fleance. "There's husbandry in heaven; / Their candles are all out." Right, so that prompted a hearty, "What the hell are they talking about?" from me.
Turns out the line means that the people in heaven are exercising thrift in their household duties in that they have put out their candles. Presumably it's good household sense to not let your candles burn while you're asleep when no one, except scared kids, benefits from the light. (It's probably a common sense fire prevention step also, now that I think about it.) This means, of course, that hundreds and hundreds of years before electricity, parents were probably still yelling at their children to turn out the lights when they left a room. "Who left this candle burning!?! What, am I made of money!?! Do you kids think wax just grows on trees!?!"
Anyway, the line started me questioning the whole "husband" (i.e. "spouse") /"animal husbandry" thing. What's the relationship there? And what's the "husband" / "wife" relationship? What's going on there?
And I said, "This looks like a job for ... The Word Geek!"
Okay, so here we go.
Turns out where you want to start is with "bóndas" or "bundas" and "wifs".
Both of these words are old -- old, old, old -- going back to Old English and Old Norse ("bóndi") in the case of bónda and Old Saxon, old Germans, Old Frisian, and eventually Old Norse as well for wif. Bónda apparently could come from "bóandi" or "buandi", present participles of "bóa" or "bua", which meant to dwell in a household or have a household. So a bóndi is a peasant who owns his own household, a freeman or a yeoman. "Wif", apparently used to just mean "woman," but then it grew to specifically mean a woman of humble rank or a woman engaged in humbling employment. From there it came to be used to describe specifically sales women. Thus you have such terms as "ale wife," "fish wife," "oyster wife," etc.
Next we bring in "hús," the elder form of "house." Ah, starting to make sense isn't it? Now this word is old, so old I don't even want to get into it. Suffice it to say, it follows the same general path as our other two, so far, and most likely predates both of them. All three first appear in print around 1000 ACE, which I imagine is the earliest anything starts appearing in print that you can call English. ("Wif" kicks all asses with 725 ACE reference. Shit!)
Now, logic says that a "húswif" should be a woman selling houses, right? Right. However, illogic rules and húswif seems to always have meant a woman attached to a house. In a similar way, you have a húsbónda, a freeman who owns his own house who is attached to a house -- that term obviously from the Department of Redundancy Department. So over a millennium ago you had húswifs and húsbóndas. Very quickly they shortened the former and your had husbands and wives.
"Spouse" is, of course, from the French "épouser," which means "to marry." A lot of French words that start with the accented "é" have the "é" changed to an "s." Don't know why. Anyway, the French word, of course, has Latin origins, specifically the word, "sponsare," which means "to wed." It's apparently always been a neuter term, and it's, surprisingly, our only Latin monster in today's lexical perambulations.
The strange thing is, the OED has its earliest reference around 1200. However, the French have been in England since 1066. Does it really take a hundred plus years to start seeing French infiltrating English?
"Bride" takes us back into the Old German, Old Norse world. It's another old, old word. Back in its German days ("brütt") it seems to have meant "daughter-in-law." There's some thought that it may have come from the verb "to bru" - to cook, to brew, or to make broth. So bride would specifically mean "our son's cooking girl." How romantic.
"Groom" is another old, old word having the same etymological roots. (Gracious, it's like a visit to the rest home with this Word Geek!) Analogous to wife, groom originally meant just a man. It then went to mean specifically a lowly man who takes care of things for you, things like animals. So does that make a "bridegroom" a man who tends to your son's new cook?
Maybe that's what they originally meant before they decided they weren't married to that meaning.
Turns out the line means that the people in heaven are exercising thrift in their household duties in that they have put out their candles. Presumably it's good household sense to not let your candles burn while you're asleep when no one, except scared kids, benefits from the light. (It's probably a common sense fire prevention step also, now that I think about it.) This means, of course, that hundreds and hundreds of years before electricity, parents were probably still yelling at their children to turn out the lights when they left a room. "Who left this candle burning!?! What, am I made of money!?! Do you kids think wax just grows on trees!?!"
Anyway, the line started me questioning the whole "husband" (i.e. "spouse") /"animal husbandry" thing. What's the relationship there? And what's the "husband" / "wife" relationship? What's going on there?
And I said, "This looks like a job for ... The Word Geek!"
Okay, so here we go.
Turns out where you want to start is with "bóndas" or "bundas" and "wifs".
Both of these words are old -- old, old, old -- going back to Old English and Old Norse ("bóndi") in the case of bónda and Old Saxon, old Germans, Old Frisian, and eventually Old Norse as well for wif. Bónda apparently could come from "bóandi" or "buandi", present participles of "bóa" or "bua", which meant to dwell in a household or have a household. So a bóndi is a peasant who owns his own household, a freeman or a yeoman. "Wif", apparently used to just mean "woman," but then it grew to specifically mean a woman of humble rank or a woman engaged in humbling employment. From there it came to be used to describe specifically sales women. Thus you have such terms as "ale wife," "fish wife," "oyster wife," etc.
Next we bring in "hús," the elder form of "house." Ah, starting to make sense isn't it? Now this word is old, so old I don't even want to get into it. Suffice it to say, it follows the same general path as our other two, so far, and most likely predates both of them. All three first appear in print around 1000 ACE, which I imagine is the earliest anything starts appearing in print that you can call English. ("Wif" kicks all asses with 725 ACE reference. Shit!)
Now, logic says that a "húswif" should be a woman selling houses, right? Right. However, illogic rules and húswif seems to always have meant a woman attached to a house. In a similar way, you have a húsbónda, a freeman who owns his own house who is attached to a house -- that term obviously from the Department of Redundancy Department. So over a millennium ago you had húswifs and húsbóndas. Very quickly they shortened the former and your had husbands and wives.
"Spouse" is, of course, from the French "épouser," which means "to marry." A lot of French words that start with the accented "é" have the "é" changed to an "s." Don't know why. Anyway, the French word, of course, has Latin origins, specifically the word, "sponsare," which means "to wed." It's apparently always been a neuter term, and it's, surprisingly, our only Latin monster in today's lexical perambulations.
The strange thing is, the OED has its earliest reference around 1200. However, the French have been in England since 1066. Does it really take a hundred plus years to start seeing French infiltrating English?
"Bride" takes us back into the Old German, Old Norse world. It's another old, old word. Back in its German days ("brütt") it seems to have meant "daughter-in-law." There's some thought that it may have come from the verb "to bru" - to cook, to brew, or to make broth. So bride would specifically mean "our son's cooking girl." How romantic.
"Groom" is another old, old word having the same etymological roots. (Gracious, it's like a visit to the rest home with this Word Geek!) Analogous to wife, groom originally meant just a man. It then went to mean specifically a lowly man who takes care of things for you, things like animals. So does that make a "bridegroom" a man who tends to your son's new cook?
Maybe that's what they originally meant before they decided they weren't married to that meaning.
posted by - caj at 4:43 AM
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