Then there"s pork, which entered English from French in the 14th century. French is a Romance language, a language that developed from Latin. So if English speakers had been raising swine and consuming its flesh for a few hundred years, why, in the 14th century, did they begin using the term pork? As one word lover pointed out, it wasn"t as if some 14th century peasant woke up one morning and picked out a Latin-based word to join the lexicon.

In fact, we can thank—or blame—the Norman invaders for the advent of pork. One result of the 11th century Normandy invasion was that French speakers became the ruling upper class. While the lower classes raised the swine, those to the manner born were served, at their request, pork.

Begging the question

We hate to say that folks have been begging us to address, once again, the question of begging the question, so we"ll sidestep the pun and look at the fallacy of relying on translations from Latin to determine the meaning of an English phrase. We turn back to the correspondent who shared with us this observation: "I have always thought . . . begging the question is when an answer is given that circumvents an earlier question that needs to be answered before the original answer is given . . . [h]owever, it seems many [people now use it] to imply that the answer was to a stupid question."

Our friend may have noticed a new sense development of beg the question; but before we get to that question, we beg your indulgence while we begin at the beginning.

Begging the question is a 16th century translation of the Latin logical fallacy petitio principii. According to Aristotle, the invalidity of that argument comes from assuming or taking for granted the very thing a person is attempting to prove. Presumably because folks not trained in rhetoric are unfamiliar with the various sorts of fallacies possible, the strict forensic meaning of begging the question became confused with its result: an evasion, or sidestepping of the issue.

There"s little debate over the propriety of using beg to mean "sidestep" or "evade"; that sense is now generally considered standard. But we would think twice before using beg the question to imply the question asked was silly or in some way unimportant.

Lethal

The long-ago lethal meant not simply "capable of causing death"; "of, relating to, or causing death"; but also a specific sort of death—a "spiritual death." That sense is now archaic, but lethal still describes something that is bound to cause death or that exists for the destruction of life (lethal gas).The term lethal has its roots in letum, a Latin term for "death," but was influenced by the Greek lethe meaning "forgetfulness." In mythology, those who drank of the River Lethe in Hades (the underworld) would forget the past. We can"t forget how many similar-seeming terms for lethal exist in our lexicon.

Take deadly, for instance. Deadly is the adjective used to describe an established or very likely cause of death (a deadly disease); it was born of a Germanic word meaning "dead." Mortal, which implies that death has occurred or will occur soon (mortal wound), comes from Latin. Remember the Latin mori, meaning "to die"? In addition to developing into mortal, mori also breathed life into the terms mortuary and moribund.

Finally, there"s fatal, which, like lethal and mortal, owes a debt to Latin. Fatal stresses the inevitability of what has in fact resulted in death or destruction (the consequences were fatal); the Latin fatum means "prophetic declaration"; "oracle"; "what is ordained by the gods"; "destiny"; "fate."

Staunch

We heard from a listener seeking to check her suspicions that we had goofed in our use of the verb staunch when talking about using hankies to staunch one"s tears. Our staunch was spelled staunch. Our correspondent told us she"d always believed stanch is the usual spelling for a verb, while staunch is the spelling associated with the adjectival use.

She"s not the first person to think that way. Grammarian Henry Fowler made the same observation more than eight decades ago. Still, both spellings (for both functions) have been in reputable use for centuries, and commentators have never insisted that one or the other is the only correct one.

Both spellings derive from the Old French estancher, meaning "to stop the flow of"; "stanch." The verb stanch means "to check or stop the flowing of"; or "to stop the flow of blood from a wound." The adjective staunch—which first appeared in print in the 15th century, a century after the verb form appeared in the 14th century—is used to describe being "steadfast in loyalty or principle"; "faithful"; "watertight"; or "sound."

So should our spelling have reflected the usual spelling? Perhaps, although, as we said earlier, both spellings have long been used interchangeably and are considered variants. And since, no matter how you spell it, the term is pronounced /staunch/ we"ll remain steadfast in our desire to not worry overly much.

Outfit & upstart

We were recently asked about two compound nouns: outfit and upstart. Outfit was coined by combining fit plus out, while upstart is the offspring of the Middle English up plus starten.

Compound words—in the strictest sense—are created from components that are words. Offspring, for example, and afterthought are both compounds. But compound word can also be applied to words created from various combinations of words, combining forms, or affixes. By this definition, psychology is a compound, and so is centimeter.

These "words, combining forms, or affixes" are known to linguists as lexemes, "meaningful linguistic units naming items in the vocabulary of a language." The lexeme contrasts with the complex word, a word which counts a bound form (a form which always occurs in combination with another linguistic form) as one or more of its immediate constituents. Unmanly is a complex word, for example, since un is always bound to another form and does not stand alone.

But back to today"s compound words: outfit and upstart. Outfit, as we said, comes from fit out; its noun form dates to the middle of the 18th century, when it referred to "the act or process of fitting out or equipping, as for a voyage or expedition." The clothing ensemble sense followed a century later. Then there"s upstart, the 16th century coinage meaning "parvenu." The sense referring to a "startup enterprise" didn"t break out until three centuries later.

Two notable women

Two notable women share today"s birthday, 126 years apart. The first birthday girl, a beloved and respected British author, was born in 1775. The second birthday girl was born in Philadelphia in 1901; she grew up to become an important anthropologist. The writing of the two birthday women appears at hundreds of spots in the Unabridged Dictionary as examples of words used in context.

Have our clues thus far given you enough to identify the birthdays we"re celebrating today? Try this: the 18th century novelist is quoted in the Unabridged describing a character as "open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong, but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise"; she also spoke of "the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly disposed towards everyone." Our 20th century academic is quoted as describing "the elaborate set of honorific words used to people of rank"; and she observed that a certain "dance often becomes flagrantly obscene and definitely provocative."