HUMANIST

Years ago at a party, when I was single, a friend recommended a single man to me with the approving descriptor, "He's a humanist." Reminds me of a writer (I forget who it was) who said he didn't know what to say to people who introduced themselves by saying, "I'm a people person." He wondered if he should answer, "Well, I'm into things."

The word humanist is one of those simple-looking words that actually needs a lot of definition and background. It does not simply mean, of course, a human, but the "ist" ending does not have the pejorative sense here that it does in racist or Islamist. The term humanism arose during the Renaissance, but what need was there for a word that stressed the value of human beings and their welfare and works? Before that, people didn't assume that we base our values on the needs of dogs or garden vegetables, for instance. The obvious contrasting idea is theism, the belief in a god and in a reality beyond that of our senses, maybe something bigger than a human being. Humans have done many wonderful things, but I like to think there's something bigger and better to measure myself against, other than another human being. Any human being. I'm too vain to settle for such low standards.

By the way, some people are trying to introduce the invented word "Christianist" as a parallel to the Islamist or Jihadist. It's just not a good parallel, though, because even the most annoying Christians today don't saw people's heads off with rusty blades or threaten to shoot them to encourage conversion. The worst people who call themselves Christians are not, like the Phelps crowd, who are into picketing funerals. They started with the funerals of gays (or at least people who died of AIDS), then moved to funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq with the explanation that they died because the US tolerates gays, and they planned to picket the funerals of the Amish children, until radio host Mike Gallagher made a deal with them: he would give them an hour on his program if they would stay away, and they did. They are not Christians, they are insanists. They give the insane a bad name.

And remember John Wayne as The Shootist ~ www.yourdictionary.com defines the ist ending thusly:

1. a. One that performs a specified action: lobbyist. b. One that produces, makes, operates, plays, or is connected with a specified thing: novelist.

2. A specialist in a specified art, science, or skill: biologist.

3. An adherent or advocate of a specified doctrine, theory, or school of thought: anarchist.

4. One that is characterized by a specified trait or quality: romanticist.

(Note that they say "one that" instead of "one who." I don't know if that has any bearing on the definitions.) Anyway, ist comes from a Greek suffix meaning agent. Is a shooter different from a shootist? Anyone or anything can be a shooter, I guess, but a shootist is a pro.

SINGLETUDE

Here's an item snatched from my constant internal dialogue (no, it's not a monologue): "I never took a vow of singletude." What's the difference between -tude (from Latin tudo/tudin), -ness (from OE nes), -hood (from OE haedu), -ship (from OE scipe), and anny other suffixes that turn an adjective into a noun?

We have singleness and solitude and solitariness, but not singletude or singlehood. Oneness and singleness don't mean the same thing. There is no singleship.

The suffix ship seems to be used in words denoting something important. Your lordship. Worship (worth or worthy-ship). Scholarship. The suffix scipe is related to other senses of ship. A ship carries a sort of world in itself.

The suffix hood is related to the hood you wear on your head, so a hood covers, encircles, and encloses something.

The suffix ness is possibly related to ness meaning a cape or headland (as in Loch Ness), so implies a location where something exists.

As for tude, it's a "Latinate suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives and participles (corresponding to native -ness), from Fr. -tude, from L. -tudo (gen. -tudinis)." So I can't invent any meanning there.

As for why we don't enjoy singletude in modern English, that's just how it is, or isn't.

AS OPPOSED TO A FAKE REENACTMENT

Heard on TV: "This is an actual reenactment." That's like saying this is an actual piece of fiction or drama. I never doubted that the reenactment was real, but how would you recognize a fake reenactment?

EDUCATION REPORT

Recently Bill R. sent something from The Irascible Professor, and I found another amusing entry on that site: "The Thirteenth Annual Emperor Awards" by Poor Elijah (Peter Berger, August 21, 2006). The Emperor is the one with no clothes, and in this case, no clothes in the classroom (I'm sure many of us have had that nightmare). Examples:

1. The Archimedes Eureka Honorarium went to a team of "scientists" who discovered that students who study algebra in 8th grade tend to do better in math in 9th grade, and 8th graders who read lots of books have more "success" in 9th grade.

2. An ACT study determined that students who can read complex material are more ready for college than those who cannot. An ACT spokesperson described this report as an "in your face statement." Those daring ACT guys.

3. A workshop on teaching math posited that "children enter school as creative mathematicians" but are damaged by being taught math from a "one way-one answer point of view." You might point this out the next time you get handed a bill. Explain that a creative accountant could adjust your bill to make you happier and improve your self-esteem. People who want more than one answer to a question should major in English, not math.

4. An educator called for the word "fail" to be replaced with "deferred success."

5. A New Hampshire school banned the word "freshman" for being sexist, but allowed a school production of "The Vag ina Monologues", "which is apparently not an example of gender-specific, non-inclusive language." (I threw a space into one word there in hopes of fooling your spam filters.) Eventually people will probably try to throw out all gender pronouns as being exclusionary and non-inclusive.

EUROENGLISH

Maybe you've seen this making the rounds of the Web, Euroenglish. The joke is that the European Union will phase in English as its official language, and will alter its spelling along the way. The joke is that English will ultimately be spelled and pronounced as if it's being spoken by a European of indefinite nationality with a very strong accent: "ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!" Of course Esperanto was a serious attempt at the same thing. But looking at the photo of L. L. Zamenhof on the Wikipedia article linked here, inventor of Esperanto, I'd say he looks like a joker. By the way, I happened to run across this factoid: The father of George Soros, the man who broke the English pound, was a huge Esperanto supporter, and he changed the family name from Schwartz to Soros, an Esperanto verb meaning "will soar." But in Hungarian "soros" means "next in line, or designated successor." Successor to God, no doubt.

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SEARCH IT OUT

Proverbs 25:2

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

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