Repost: Eldridge’s Etymology of the Week — School
Here’s an old post that I enjoyed and I thought would be a nice way to start the first official week of Autumn….
Today’s word is a word so common we may forget its history; and it seems so obvious, we forget that we are the product of 2500 years of work and refinement-and we’re still working at it. This week’s etymology is school, a place of instruction.
Until very recently, school was reserved only for the wealthy, the particularly precocious, or the physically underdeveloped. You can imagine in a world that depended on back-breaking labor: in the fields, on the battle-field, and in the mines, it would be those with excellent constitutions who were the most prized of all members of any society. Only those with free time had the luxury of avoiding the unending toil that survival entailed.
Therefore, the original meaning of the Greek word skhole (school) was “leisure, spare time.” This was a derived from the prehistoric root, *segh which meant “pause, cut, break.” Of course, what do people do with their spare time, especially without TV or IM or text messaging? They talk of course! And schools were the great houses of talkers. The Ancient Greeks especially liked talking. Their primary form of talking is what is known as the dialectic (related words: dialect, dialogue), a series of questions and answers that eventually became formalized into the discipline we now know as logic: a series of propositions that when rigorously examined holds true. This should be transparent to any of you who have suffered through Geometry (notice the Greek root: Geo “earth”, meter “measurement”) and those exasperating logical proofs. Just imagine if all of your free time was enjoyed in that exacting dialogue… it is no wonder the Greeks inspire both such admiration and exasperation!
The first great school that we recognize was Plato’s Academy. The Academy is a derivation of the original name of the place: Hekademia, which was in honor of the original settler of that plot of land, Hekademos. Talk about a conservative society! Plato spent the rest of his life trying to convince students to attend his school (so he could eat) and arguing against outdated traditions. And so his Academy stayed open for over 900 years, a tradition in its own right. The books of his that we still have are literally his school texts-the rebel became an institution. His most famous pupil, Aristotle, also founded his own school, The Lycaeum, which took to teaching a methodology hostile to Plato’s. I guess he took Plato’s suggestion to “think for yourself” to heart. Unfortunately, we only have Aristotle’s lecture notes.
Scholarship, scholar, scholastic all arrive on the scene with the development of that particularly medieval institution: The University. These universities replaced the older monastic schools and took on an aura of specialization and respectability (depending on your point of view). Whole towns sprang up to service these large and lucrative schools, and roaming bands of teachers and students began to crisscross Europe. Here the infamous debates as to “How many angels could fit on the head of a pin?” or “Can God make a rock so large that even He cannot lift it?” or “Can God win a chess-match if He begins in check-mate?” took shape. The medieval university was the hotbed of argument and counter-argument (clearly from the Greek model)-apparently they had all the free time in the world!
A closing note on the value of investigative and philosophic argument: Some of the fundamental truths of the scientific revolution-which has given birth to so many gadgets that now take up all of our free time-actually were developed during the very non-scientific debates from the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. For example, Peter Lombard (c. 1100-1160), a famous theologian, posed an obscure question as to how grace or charity might be increased in a person; this was then tackled by “The Subtle Doctor,” John Duns Scotus (Scotus = the Irishman) who developed the idea and logic that we can add qualities (Charity + charity = more charity). In 1330 a group of professors from Oxford called “The Calculators” took up the question in a different form and considered speed to be a quality that we could “add” to itself and eventually developed a “mean speed theorem.” This theorem was proven by Nicole Oresme (pronounce or-em) in 1350-without any modern mathematics! Nicole’s proof was very well-publicized. The more famous Galileo cited Oresme’s proof as the fundamental axiom of the “new science” in his 1638 book Two New Sciences. And so an obscure theological discussion became the groundwork for groundbreaking scientific discoveries which have given rise to the modern era!
It just goes to show that perhaps religion and science are not so opposed to each other after all, and that any inquiry, no matter how obscure, can, with free time, diligence, and some creativity bear fruit for all to enjoy. Here’s to school! And now hit the books!
Filed under: Etymologies and
Elaborating on the theme of school and learning, I recently learned that the word procrastinate, which is an integral part of school and learning, comes from the Latin word cras, which means tomorrow. So the etymology all fits together like a puzzle. Pro means for, as in pro bono, pro-life vs. pro-choice, cras means tomorrow, as I stated earlier, and ator is an ending used to make words cooler (Proof: Arnold+Governor=Ahnuld the Governator. QED) By the way, some people are going to frantically form the Procrastinator’s club at nutrition, in between periods, and at lunch tomorrow, so I’ll let you know how that turns out…tomorrow.
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why can’t school still be a leisure, spare time =D
btw, i thought we’re not supposed to promote procrastination….
hahaha
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uh… the post above was left by me but i was on my friend’s computer..
haha..
oops..
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I like how Dylan worked out how Procrastinator was formed, the puzzle idea is very cool, and it’s very nice how there’s a definite answer, unlike most things in English class.
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[...] Original post by APEnglish–Los Al [...]
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I was wondering..if school is “for the wealthy, the particularly precocious, or the physically underdeveloped”, which one are all of us?? I think I’m “particularly precocious” and soon to be “wealthy”. And school is a leisure is some ways: we get breaks every 55 minutes, “snack time”, lunch, assemblies, time to hang out with friends, and, for many, even sports.
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really, school isn’t ALL that bad nowadays. during the beginning of summer, i found myself with so much time that i really didn’t know how to have fun
. of course, as the days progressed i realized that going outside wasn’t that bad, but coming back to school wasn’t as bad of an experience as it was in 9th and 10th grade. as we get to know more people, school is becoming like that talking center where we all know each other and the transition from no work->work isn’t that bad anymore.
learning is fun, in my opinion, but work isn’t. but then, how can you learn how to do something without working it out =/ . so work is good but its not fun. i’ll just go become buddhist one day and i’ll be happy doing work, i guess?
as for the God references, i realllyy don’t find any point in arguing as to what God can or cannot do because God is an undefined being that no one presently knows about. God could be a figure of our imagination, or a real being that controls everything around us. we don’t know. we won’t know unless something changes. arguing whether God can or cannot do something doesn’t make us any closer to finding the mystery of life.
in fact, as we have learned, the greeks and indians and everyone before us had their religions to have a basis for life. the sun god, moon god, water god, volcano god (lol), etc. we said they had these to explain life. couldn’t they just come back at us and say our one God was to explain life? couldnt judaism, christianity, and islam all be forms of law, ancient, of course, that forced the public to act a certain way or suffer the consequences just like the evil god would come and haunt you in polytheism? if you’re bad, you go to hell, right? well, that’s what we know from reading, but we can’t be sure of it until we die, and i don’t know about you, but i’m not all for taking risks about either being in paradise or burning for eternity. so yes, religion does control me, but how do i know that it isn’t fake? is it all just based on believing and hoping for the best or just having faith in what you believe in, like a test?
i’m not atheist or agnostic but isn’t it weird how we all find our own religion to be correct and disregard others’ beliefs and just say that they were making it up to explain life? the Bible, Koran, Torah, Old/New Testaments, etc. all hold many beliefs held by the majority of the world and they are all supposedly connected through Prophet Abraham (i think?).
but we don’t even really know that there is a Prophet Abraham, we can only go off of the basis of these ancient writings, some of which were said to have been completely reconstructed from time to time.
truth is, we only know what we know now and what we have personally experienced in the past. other than that, we believe other things are true rather than knowing that they are true, as mr. eldridge said in class.
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Many of us, including myself, strongly believe that schoolwork is not part of our leisure time. But one paragraph in this blog stated that in our spare time, we talk either by IM or texting and lets face it most of us would die if we had to sit in isolation for more than 2 hours (I know i would). It also stated that when we talk we learn and i strongly agree. Its true that sometimes we talk about pointless topics such as what happened last night on Gossip Girl (btw the best show ever!) and what the right pronunciation for crayon is but some of those converstations actually become educational. We debate one another, explain to others, and learn by listening to our peers. In my opinion, communication more than anything helps us succeed in life, and school provides a shelter for that growth.
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Well, right now I’m at home because I’m sick. I got bored so I decided to leave a comment on the blog.
I just finished reading Nadir’s comment on religion and found his view quite interesting. Then I thought of something that might spark some thought in people’s minds:
There is a protein in our body called laminin. Laminin is the amino acid that holds our bodies together (skin, bones, you name it). Without laminin, we would either a) be blobs of stuff or b) be dead. What people don’t know is that laminin’s makeup and actual physical appearance is that of a cross. I learned this through a DVD I was watching and actually saw a picture of a laminin molecule.
Now the question is: Is the cross-shaped laminin divine doing or just a coincidence?
I personally believe it is divine doing. I have been a Christian my whole life and, although it might sound crazy to other people who are not Christians, I have experienced the love of God. This discovery just solidifies for me that there is a God, and it is the God I believe in. They say the truth will set you free, and I have been free for a long time.
I am not here to preach, but I do encourage those who are curious after reading this to investigate. You never know what you can stumble upon when you are trying something new… =)
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That laminin thing was pretty interesting. However, I don’t think laminin’s cross shape is necessarily a result of divine intervention.
For the most part, people’s imaginations are limited by what the senses can conceive, which is why most of us find it difficult to visualize ultraviolet light or imagine parallel universes. Observation greatly influences our thoughts, and almost all of the symbols and images we create as humans are derived from our surroundings and can be assigned a natural counterpart. Even shapes that are found less frequently in nature have roots in sensory experience. For instance, the star shape is constructed from the idea of angles and lines. In the same way, the cross shape was conceived by the human mind, which was influenced by the “seeing sense”. The shape itself is pretty commonplace in our environment, even though it may not be with perfect straight lines and perfect 90 degree angles. Basically, there is a tendency for manmade (the cross) and natural (laminin) objects to parallel each other.
However, I admit that the religous meaning behind laminin can’t be determained with great certainty, since there is still a lot of debate surrounding religion. It’s pretty much all up to individual interpretation. Personally, I have no idea whether or not God exists. In general though, I am more inclined to think that Laminin’s cross-like shape isn’t as much fate as it is coincidence or a natural tendency.
And after reading this through, I’m actually kind of confused about what I wrote. Hopefully, I haven’t lost anyone and this is just my mind being disorganized.
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