Etymology
The Reason of Words
Etymology ← “etumos” (Greek) = Truth
Language is the core of communication. Communication is the core of our thoughts are manifested. Our thoughts are the core of us. So by understanding our language, where it comes from, and why we use it how we do, we can understand ourselves.
This is why I’m so unrelenting with the vocabulary I use. In writing, we often hear the advice not to use overly complicated words or phrases someone may have to look up to understand. I question why. Honestly, if that person doesn’t understand or value the lesson to learn what a word means then they’re not my market. Learning what a word means showcases its background. Where it’s from. And from that root, you can decipher far more situations that come about.
And more importantly, the more “complicated” a word, typically the more precise. English is not a dumb or vague language. English can be as specific as you need it to be. That’s a beautiful thing about it! There are 10 different words with essentially the same meaning, however, with different root structures and different connotations, they can convey a completely different message when used correctly.
Crafting Company Communications
The implications of mental processing are far-reaching. This is why it’s so important to watch our wording and understand our phrasing, especially when working with teams and 3rd parties. Our words can be interpreted differently by different people with different perspectives. If a CEO shares a vision in simple terms, then it’s interpreted differently by different teams, they may each head for the North Star with a few degrees of variation. By the time that star is supposed to be reached, each is far off from each other, and the gaps are enough to cause failure instead of success.
If instead care and precision were to be taken in the crafting of the speech, variation can be mitigated so the whole company is acting in unison leaving less to fall through the cracks. Success is then more realistic.
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Company communications also dictate the culture of the company. By treating colleagues with respect for their intelligence and capability to learn, a trait easily more easily transmissible through language than even management styles, operators are more able to feel valuable to the company.
Etymology Education
If you read my last essay about Root-Cause Analysis, you’ll see that I’ve had a life-long passion for using the scientific method to break anything down into its smallest components to find the most practical thread behind the pieces. With etymology, this started with a fascination for the huge books that laid on my father’s desk next to a magnifying glass. To be in the same room with him as he worked without disturbing him, I’d pour myself over the 5pt font of this Oxford English Dictionary and read the history of how we communicated over time.
Nowadays, Google pictorially traces the history of a word with an analysis of when and how it’s been used. My favorite is “to educate” which means “to draw from within”. Especially in the changing times of Covid, there’s much debate about whether getting a good education is about going to Harvard or whether it’s about using the resources widely available to us. Both Good Will Hunting and a precise root-cause analysis come to the same conclusion. The Stoics had it right.
If education is about finding the root of thought within yourself, (perfecting your intuition), problem-solving is about educating yourself on the issue and finding its core to draw the solution from within.
Found Without Translation
Drawing from within allows us to be more versatile and adaptive to new situations. When traveling through different cultures, it is inevitable to come across non-native English speakers. If in the West, most of their native languages have common ancestors with English. So if we know the roots, we can communicate more seamlessly because many advanced English words are actually common words in other tongues.
This can be expressed best with an example of the communication structure with one of my best friends in Berlin. He is from Sicily and moved to Germany when he was quite young (9ish?) In school, he immediately learned German and eventually picked up English through World of Warcraft. So his English is not proper, structured nor advanced. Technically speaking.
What I love so much about conversations with him (besides all our inside jokes, one of which is represented by this picture), is that even though he’s not so confident speaking because his lack of training makes him doubt, he actually speaks a level of English I have (generally) only been privy to with my friends from Oxford, Cambridge or the top Ivy Leagues. When he doesn’t know of a word to precisely describe what he’s feeling, he uses the Italian or the German word instead. Though he says it with a slightly different pronunciation than how I know the word to be spoken, it’s typically valid in the English language and provides a deeper understanding into his mind than I get from most Americans in my network. It helps us feel more understood in a multi-cultural environment and helps us bring more value and empathy to others we don’t have any other similarities with.
Communication ROI
If you know me, you know I love efficiency. So maybe my love of etymology is simply that, how do we use root-cause analysis, my favorite process, to communicate with a better ROI. It’s why I will start every blog post of mine with the etymology of a word related to the storyline — to give a better context about what is to come.
