APEnglish–Los Al

Well, due to the vicissitudes of fate I have not had the wherewithal to produce an etymological essay each week.  In fact, I have had the poor fortune to fall egregiously behind.  I could sing you a litany of woes, but I am sure that so could many of you.  Such is the nature of life.  Our lot is to find a way to make it work.

So without further ado, this week’s etymology is sinister, strongly suggestive of great harm, menace, or evil: baleful, malign.

Sinister derives from Old French sinister, unfavorable, on the left;  and then from the original Latin word, sinister meaning left (as in the opposite of right).  It may have developed from the Proto-Indo-European *sen, the slower or weaker hand.  So how do we get this strange shift?  Well, as we probably already know, we humans are quite a superstitious bunch.  How many of you check your horoscope, “Just to see what it says”?  Or have a lucky talisman?  Or have a “luck” ritual: dressing in a certain order, etc?  Athletes especially, you’re the worst.

So the Romans, too, were no exception.  They were an amazingly superstitious bunch by our standards.  Omens were everywhere.  Soothsayers, their equivalent of priests, read the entrails of sacrificial animals, the auspices.  Generals and Senators would call forth the soothsayers to give forth prognostications and explanations-much like our Sunday football forecasts.  There were also professional augurers who read and interpreted the flights of birds.  Romans were especially fond of birds-particularly birds of prey: their army standard was a golden eagle (carried atop a very tall staff).  When an army prepared for battle, the omens were read: a bird on the right (L. dexter) was good fortune, a bird (perhaps even a crow or cormorant) on the left, the sinistra, presaged ill.

The Romans were no special case, though.  In most ancient cultures, the left was the wicked side.  When the two angels of our natures appear on each shoulder, the good angel always gets the right, and the tempter gets the left.  There is some evidence that when we lie people generally look to the left (and sometimes down).  We shake with our right hands, indicating our mutual goodwill, equality, and that we’re not carrying any concealed weapons.  (Boy Scouts shake with the left, because it is closer to the heart.)

Our language bears the marks of this time honored tradition, as well as our culture, too.  Until very recently left-handed children were forced to write with their right, since the left was wicked and immoral.  If someone cannot dance we say he has “two left feet.”  We fight for our “rights,” not our lefts.  If someone has nimble fingers we say that she has dexterity (from the Latin word for right, dexter) or is adroit, from French droit, right.  On the other hand, if someone is rude and uncouth and callow, we say she is gauche (pronounced GOH-sh), directly from the French word for left.  If one can write with both hands we say he is ambidextrous, or having two right hands (literally, both rights).  In heraldy, if one is born illegitimately (a literal bastard), then his coat of arms would have a bend or bar (from French barre) sinister, meaning a wide stripe that runs from the lower left to the upper right.  The term “bar sinister” in English has become a euphemism for bastard.  So even in a genre where it was supposed to retain its true Latin meaning, sinister takes on sinful overtones.  Spanish has abandoned the word altogether as hopeless and imported a Basque word for left, izquierda-siniestra being too linked with wickedness.

So as you stand up for your rights, remember to include the lonely-lefties, those south-paws of ill-repute, and give them a helping hand.

Filed under: Etymologies, Language Notes and