One Trick Pony?

Dear Blog Reader;

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. 66 degrees and sunny on Veteran's Day is an indication that weather wise things are going well.

This is one of those quick little blogs that springs to mind from time to time. A thought grabs my attention. It is a fully self contained thought that doesn't need much expository composition.

Today's blog is an etymology lesson. Yes, I am going to help you learn about the origin of a word. I hope to redeem my readership's esteem with a serious educational tome after last week's diversion into potty humor. It appears that sensibilities were offended.

In the middle of last week's blog I used the word bidet. I wasn't sure about its spelling. I tried the hooked on phonics method and sounded it out. B E D A Y. Something in my mind (spell checker) said that's not right. Bidet sounds a bit French to me. B E D A E. Again that still small voice (spell checker) said that I was wrong. In fact, I was so wrong that no close suggestions were given.

I could hear Mrs. Ash, my fourth grade battle ax of a teacher, say, "look it up in the dictionary." I always wanted to point out to her that dictionaries were for looking up definitions, not spellings. In fact, the key to dictionary use is the correct spelling of the word you are trying to find. As you can see looking for bidet in the bedae section was going to be an exercise in futility. You could say that I would flush my day away with such futility.

Thankfully, google saved the day. I searched on "butt washing toilet", and viola, bidet appeared.

In our world, language is ever evolving. Once a year, Merriam Webster sends out a press release declaring that they are prepared to acknowledge 5 or 6 new words that people have been using for the past 5 years or so. It makes the morning NPR newscast and we all go about our day thinking up other words for future newscasts, hoping that some clever utterance will enter the lexicon of human history.

For example, in this political season, President is from the 14th century. It is derived from the Latin word praesidere meaning to lead or govern. That makes perfect sense.

As I looked up bidet, I found that it is a French word; as predicted. It is from the 17th century. It is not that old of a word. This is also to be expected because indoor plumbing is not very old in the annals of time and surely this iteration of public health took some time to develop. So everything was proceeding as expected. Then to my surprise, I found that bidet is the French word for pony.

Really? How in the world did the French get from pony to butt washing toilet. Then I realized that we are talking about the French. I suppose that the early French were busy throwing down their rifles and running away, and in their haste, they lost their backpacks containing the ration of toilet paper. Who knows? Maybe a small captain was riding away from battle on a small pony when the call of nature over took him. To his horror, he realized the error of his ways and could find no suitable vegetative substitute. Necessity being the mother of invention, he looked around saw his pony and viola etymological history was made.

Leave it to the French.

Take care

Roger