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The origins of the word 'Spectacles'

Friday 4th May 2018 - Alexander Bassett (originally written for and published in Issue 1 of the Xertz Magazine published May 2018)

The English word ‘spectacle’ has two meanings: the first is defined in Garmonsway’s Penguin English Dictionary as ‘something displayed or exhibited impressive or unusual’, the second as ‘framed optical lenses worn in front of the eyes to correct defects of vision’. The word itself comes from a Latin origin, which passed into the English language via French; I shall explore from which early words it came and trace it back to its origins on the rural Italian peninsula.

The noun ‘spectacle’ in English comes from the French noun ‘spectacle’ which itself is a contracted form of the Latin ‘spectaculum’, a neuter (genderless) noun. ‘Spectaculum’ is a combination of ‘-culum’, a suffix which the Romans would add to verbs to change them into a noun, and ‘specto’ the Latin verb meaning ‘I watch/observe’ the ‘o’ of which changes to an ‘a’ when the verb is conjugated. This itself is a frequentative (meaning expressing repetition) form of the verb ‘specio’ from which it is derived via the past participle ‘spectus’. Whereas some English and indeed most romance (Italian, French, Spanish and Romanian) words can be traced back to either a Latin origin, tracing the origin of Latin words becomes much harder as written sources prior to Latin are few and far between. There are written Greek sources predating Latin sources which provide a certain amount of etymological (meaning to do with the origin of words) information: we know for example that the Greek translation of ‘specio’ is the highly similar σκέπτομαι/sképtomai. However, in terms of the languages of the Italian peninsula, most of these were orally transmitted meaning we have no surviving written record of their language. Linguists have managed to reconstruct early linguistic models by finding etymological similarities. They have determined the Italic origin to be ‘spekjō’ and finally the Indo-European origin to be ‘spékyeti’. It is from this word that a huge number of languages derive their word for ‘spectacle’ thus showing that the English word is etymologically related to the modern Russian, Sanskrit and Iranian words for ‘spectate’.

However, leaving these tenuous ancient words aside, let us turn our attention to the Latin words ‘specto’ and ‘spectaculum’ the written evidence of which provide us with the first concrete proof of how these words were used. Today a ‘spectacle’ denotes an event or sight which one might consider extraordinary or exciting, however, to the Romans a spectacle could simply denote a civic event. Livy describes both amazing and wondrous events, and equally the most mundane public ceremonies as ‘spectaculum’. The use of ‘spectacles’ as a word meaning glasses is a relatively modern development first recorded in the early 15th century. The first record of the word ‘spectacle’ with the meaning of eyepiece was a singular form in the 14th century. Interestingly whereas the Latin word ‘spectaculum’ has passed down into its various derivations to have virtually the same meaning in each language into which it passed, the word ‘spectacles’ meaning glasses has no cognates (words spelt similarly in different languages) at all, in French it translates to ‘lunettes’, in Italian ‘occhiali’. Even in Latin, when such a word was invented for glasses by Galileo in 1610, it was ‘perspicillum’ from the verb ‘perspicio’ (per- meaning through and spicio meaning see).

Etymology always raises interesting questions and unearths new and unforeseen discoveries. The fact that the English word ‘spectacle’ shares origins and cognates with virtually every other Indo-European language but the word ‘spectacles’ shares no cognates at all shows the irregularity and unpredictability of language. For example, the French word for glasses ‘lunettes’ (derived from lune – moon) is the plural of the word lunette which not only means telescope but also toilet-seat and breastbone. This is just one example of the randomness that can occur in language and etymology with certain words; luckily for us ‘spectacles’ is not one of them.

References

Garmonsway, G. N. (1965). The Penguin English Dictionary. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.

Luce, T. J. (1998). The Rise of Rome: Books 1-5. Oxford University Press.

Vaan, M. d. (2008). Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages. Leiden: Brill.

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Exemplary thinking and British Stoicism

Saturday 10th March 2018 - Alexander Bassett

If you turned on the news at all last week, it is highly likely you will have been confronted by coverage of the snow which, in case you hadn’t looked out of the window, blanketed the United Kingdom for several days. No matter how mind numbing one might have found the coverage, the rolling footage of people digging themselves out of their cars and the endless soundbites repeating “We are British, we should just get on with it”, the hullaballoo it caused got me thinking about from where we acquired these attitudes and what relevance they have to this day?

The concept of ‘keeping a stiff upper lip’ refers to, in the words of Merriam-Webster, “a steady and determined attitude or manner in the face of trouble”, thus uncomplaining fortitude and emotional restraint. To anyone familiar with philosophy these are some of the foundations of Stoicism, a philosophical movement which began with the teachings of Zeno circa 310bc, named so after the painted hall (stoa) in which Zeno taught. Stoicism is the exercise of virtue and the value of wisdom, its keynote being one’s sense of duty. For a stoic, virtue consisted in absolute judgement, absolute mastery of desire, absolute control of the soul over pain and absolute justice. Stoic attitudes can be observed in British literature as distant as the 16th century; “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”, as spoken by the eponymous tragic-hero of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, suggests that the way in which one chooses to interpret one’s situation is what makes it either a positive or negative experience.

Stoicism flourished in the Roman republic and later in the age of the Empire; the 2nd century Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was a close adherent to Stoicism. A notable example of Stoicism in Roman public life is the way Romans used exemplum to make informed and virtuous decisions. Exempla (ntpl) are short anecdotes about people and their actions which illustrate a moral point; they are commonly seen in the writings of the historian Livy, who uses them to explain the judgement of the Roman people. Cicero, an orator, wrote in a letter to Varro in which he said that due to the scholar’s writings on the historical significance of Rome he could “at last know who we were and where we were”. To the Romans, the idea of “being Roman” was founded in history, culture and sense of place, and to have romanitas meant to have a mastery of this knowledge. It is therefore hardly surprising that virtuous execution of judgement was, to the Romans, interpreting and using one’s knowledge. Livy provides us with many positive and negative exampla; one, which stands out significantly for the latter reason and explains the difficulties faced by Romans attempting to live up to these standards, is the story of the son of Manlius Torquatus, who disobeyed his father’s orders to fight in single combat and was subsequently put to death by his own father. Manlius the younger had incorrectly interpreted exempla to believe that he was defending his father’s honour (his father had been renowned in single combat); however, Manlius the elder had always sought permission to fight, and it was exemplary lesson of following orders which his son had failed to recognise.

Thus, every decision taken, every piece of advice given, and every statement about romanitas was steeped in cultural and historical knowledge. Is this really something that one could say is equally true to the United Kingdom? In the case of the stiff upper lip, the United Kingdom has its examples of courage in the face of adversity: the understatement of the sacrifice of Lawrence Oates, the Antarctic explorer is one who comes to mind. But to what extent does one really consider history and the past when making decisions? One must only look at contemporary British politics to see plentiful examples of lessons not learnt and advice unheeded. When one hears the voices on the television saying that ‘We are British: we must carry on, uncomplaining’, how many of those people were thinking about Lawrence Oates and his sacrifice in the cold wilderness of the Antarctic? I suspect very few; sentiments about Britishness, especially those we have heard recently are just that, empty sentiments.