Language Of Confusion: -Mand, Redux

Yep, another one of these.
 
Mandate showed up in the sixteenth century as a noun and then became a verb in the seventeenth century. It comes from the French mandat (mandate) and classical Latin mandatum, command, so the definition has stayed pretty consistent. It’s from the verb mandare, to commit or order, because the man- is from manus, hand, and dare, to give. To commit to something is to literally give it into your hand.
 
Command showed up in the fourteenth century as a verb and then a century later as a noun because words are random like that. It’s from the Old French comander/comand, from the Vulgar Latin commandare and classical Latin commendare, which actually meant to recommend or entrust. So with mandare, to commit, and the prefix com- is thought to just be intensive here, the word is to really commit/order. Commend, which showed up in the mid fourteenth century is from the same place—it makes sense, how shocking—just with a little different origin as it doesn’t seem to have come to us from French. I guess that explains the difference of one letter? Of course recommend is from the same place, and it showed up in English in the late fourteenth century, so not long after commend. The re- is also believed to be intensive, meaning a recommendation is something you’re really totally committed to.
 
Demand showed up in the late thirteenth century as a noun and a century later as a verb, although back then the words were spelled demaunde/demaunden and they meant to question. They come from the Old French demander and classical Latin demandare, to entrust, with de- meaning completely. A demand is to order completely? I guess that makes some sense. The evolution of the word—the reason we demand stuff these days—is because in French it began to be used in a legal sense, to demand as a right, and that followed into English.
 
To remand showed up in the mid fifteenth century spelled remaunden and meaning to send something back, and much like demand, its definition changed because of legal influence, and it became to command to go to a place by law. At least that evolution makes some sense. It comes from the Anglo French remaunder and Old French remander, and before that the Late Latin remandare, to send back word or repeat a command. The re- means back here, unlike with recommend, and with mandare, the word is “to order back”. What a sensible origin.
 

Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus

Language of Confusion: Do-, Part II

Part two of looking at do-, the Proto Indo European suffix meaning to give that shows up in a lot of weird places. I mean, last week kind of made sense, but trust me. Things are getting weird.

First, let’s look at date. Um, not the fruit. That’s not related. Anyway! It showed up in the early fourteenth century meaning a time period (a romantic date didn’t come about until 1885). It’s from the Old French date, Medieval Latin data (gee, why does that sound familiar?), and the classical Latin datus, which means given. So it originally meant given, which makes sense considering do- means to give, but the evolution from that to a time is weird. Apparently, it was because the Romans ended their correspondence with the word “given”, and then the day and month, possibly as in given to be messaged on that time. And because of that, date means time.

Now, data showed up later, in the mid seventeenth century, also from datum and its verb form dare, to give. Originally it meant “a fact given as the basis for calculation in mathematical problems”, so data was basically a math theorem, and then in 1897, it meant “numerical facts collected for future reference”, which is more or less what we still use it as. Kind of funny to think that data, which we use so m uch these days, is only about 120 years old. Also in this vein, mandate. It showed up in the sixteenth century from the Middle French mandat and classical Latin mandatum, command. The man- part actually means hand, and the rest is from dare, to give, so it’s “to give by hand”. I guess a command is given by hand?

Next we’re looking at edition, which yes, really is related. Edition showed up in the early fifteenth century—edit actually showed up much later, in 1791. Originally it meant a version or translation, and then in the mid sixteenth century it was publishing. The word comes from the French édition and classical Latin editionem, edition, from the verb edere, produce. The e- comes from ex-, out, and the rest is from dare. This means the word is to give out. Which… yeah, editions are given out.

Perdition showed up in the mid fourteenth century in a theological sense, and then in a general sense a little after. It’s from the Old French perdicion and Late Latin perditionem, ruin or destruction. In classical Latin, it’s the verb perdere, to destroy or waste or lose, with the per- meaning through and the rest from dare. To give through means destruction? That doesn’t really make sense. I’d like to know what the Romans were thinking with that one.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

University of Ottawa, Canada

Orbis Latinus

The Language of Confusion: To the Mandatorium!

Many words contain variants of manual, which comes from the classical Latin manualis, belonging to the hand, and can even be traced back to Proto Indo European as men-, which of course means hand. It would take forever to find and list all the manual words, so today I’m focusing on a particular subset: those related to the word mandate.

Mandate first showed up in the sixteenth century, a creation from the classical Latin mandatum, which means order. The word is a past participle of mandare, a combination of manus(hand) and dare (to give).  And yes, dare is the classical Latin word for date. It was the Romans who first started using it as a specific time.

Now, although mandate seems like the predecessor of other –mend words, it’s actually not. At least, it isn’t in English. This might seem weird, but this happens a lot. So many of our words already existed in other languages and were taken as they are needed. For example, demand first appeared in the late thirteenth century, more than two centuries before mandate. Similarly, command appeared in the thirteenth century and remand showed up in the mid fifteenth century. Reprimand and mandatory, however, did come after mandate. There’s also countermand, which I’ve never heard of before. But it doesn’t get a red squiggly line under it in Word, so apparently, it’s well used enough to be in that dictionary. Awesome points to anyone who can name a book where the word has showed up.

One thing these words all have in common is that they came from French first (well, not mandatory, that was straight from Late Latin). There is the Old French demander (to demand), comander (to entrust or instruct) and the Middle French remander (to send an order) and reprimende (a noun meaning, unsurprisingly, a reprimand). Each of those words showed up at a different time, too, as they were based off Latin.

For the most part, languages borrow from each other because, well, Occam’s razor applies to words as well. It’s easier to take the Latin demandare and switch it to demander and then demand rather than come up with a whole new word for require a specific task. Even “new” words like email and Facebook are combinations of existing words.

That’s language evolution for you.

Thanks to: 

The Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500) (I can't really read French, but even I know that says Dictionary of Middle French). 

Brigitte L.M. Bauer and Jonathan Slocum's Old French Online at  the University of Texas-Austin's College of Liberal Arts Linguistic Research Center.

John Garger's Article on Brighthub: The Golden and Silver Ages of the Latin Language: The Classical Latin Period.
And Christine's Latin Webpage.