Fwd: The Word Detective, May 8 through May 19, 2000

[Mike Salovesh]

Bapopik at AOL.COM kindly forwarded some upcoming episodes of Evan Morris's
The Word Detective.  It's extremely rare that I have a chance to add
anything to the authoritative dicta of the Word Detective, and I can't
let this chance pass.

The late Severn Darden had one of the world's greatest, natural, unique
wild imaginations and either the genius or the insanity to act on the
prompts of that imagination. He was a student at the University of
Chicago in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There are some parts of the
campus, and even an occasional corner of the city of Chicago itself,
that have not recovered to this day.

Severn was an early participant in what grew up to be the improv theater
known as The Second City.  Eventually, he sort of settled down into a
series of roles as a Hollywood character actor -- frequently as the
epitome of a mad scientist.

People who encountered Severn just once were likely to refuse to believe
the evidence of their own eyes.  Those of us who knew him became
habitual collectors of "Severn stories", assuring the world that the
more a Severn story sounded like a surrealistic nightmare the more
likely it was to be a simple recounting of the actual facts.

The first Severn story to gain wide circulation recounts the night he
somehow got inside the U of C's Rockefeller Chapel, a monument to what
the builders of gothic cathedrals would have done if only they had
Rockefeller's money.  Severn went to the organ and began to play an
impromptu concert.  He began with some reasonable Bach, but as he warmed
up he moved to boogie-woogie.  His playing was clearly audible in the
nearby women's dormitories, half a block away. Acting on the grounds
that concerts were not likely to be authorized at hours like 2:00 AM,
somebody called the campus police.  The police unlocked the front door,
and charged down the main aisle -- a distance not too different from the
length of a football field.  Severn increased the volume and played
"Pomp and Circumstance" until the cops were coming close.  Then he got
up from the organ, ran to the focus of the chapel, and shouted
"Sanctuary" as he embraced the non-sectarian altar .

He was arrested anyway.  As far as I know, no charges were filed; he was
back in class the following morning.

All of which is mere preface to the story of how Severn Darden became a
remittance man, paid by his family to stay out of his home state of
Louisiana.

Louisiana's electoral rites have always had some peculiar twists of
their own: what other state calls its counties "parishes", for example?
The Darden family were a Louisiana political tradition in their own
right.  At the height of what passes for an electoral campaign in
Louisiana, Severn's father gave a testimonial dinner in honor of The
Party's gubernatorial candidate.  (The Louisiana twist, for this
occasion, was that the dinner was NOT a fund-raising event. In those
days, the conduct of ordinary governmental business provided the major
locus for raising political funds and enriching office-holders; special
events weren't necessary.) Severn, uninvited, nonetheless managed to get
admitted to the balcony during this event.  Just as the testimonial
tributes were about to begin, Severn stood up and began to deliver a
professorial lecture in a stentorian voice:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're gathered here tonight in honor of our
distinguished gubernatorial candidate.  In such a setting, it is
reasonable to consider the etymology of the word 'gubernatorial', a word
with a history as distinguished as the history of our candidate.

It is a matter of pride to note that 'gubernatorial' is a peculiarly
Southern word.  It is derived from the word 'goober', or peanut,  a
fitting commentary on the mental qualifications prerequisite to the
office. . . "

at which point the police, who were ejecting Severn from the hall,
reached the balcony doors.  Alas, the remainder of what surely would
have been a classic among scholarly reflections was no longer audible to
those who would have benefitted most from hearing it.

The Word Detective attributes the word "gubernatorial" to a Greek root.
I quote: " 'kubernan,' meaning 'to steer a ship,' or,  more
metaphorically, 'to guide or rule.' "  I hesitate to suggest that the
Word Detective would have given us a bum steer, but surely there is
something to say for the alternative derivation offered so dramatically
by one of the great, if warped, minds of the century we may or may not
have left so recently.

--  mike salovesh       <salovesh at niu.edu>      PEACE !!!


> The Word Detective
> By Evan Morris
> Copyright 2000 by Evan Morris
> For Release:  Wednesday, May 10, 2000
>
> Dear Word Detective:  It's an election year again, and as if that wasn't
> bad enough, ours is one of the states electing a new governor.  I always
> hear this contest referred to as "gubernatorial," though I'm pretty certain
> no one has ever run for, nor been elected, gubernator.  A friend has
> suggested that the two words actually have different origins, but didn't
> elaborate, leaving me to wonder.  Care to take a run at it? -- Al Gursin,
> via the internet.
>
> Gee, I thought you'd never ask.  Governor Word Detective.  Has a nice ring
> to it.
>
> Oh, I get it, you want me to do something useful.  All right, here
> goes.  Your cryptic friend was wrong, although forgivably so.  "Governor"
> and "gubernatorial" may not look as if they're related, but they are.  The
> root of both was the Greek verb   The Latin descendant of
> "kubernan" was "gubernare," also meaning "to rule," which gave us the
> English word "gubernator" (no kidding) around 1522, meaning "ruler."  The
> adjective "gubernatorial," which appeared around 1734, at first meant
> "pertaining to a ruler or governor" in the generic sense of "governor," but
> today is almost always only used in reference to state officials bearing
> the formal title "Governor."
>
>   Now, if we back up a moment to that Latin word "gubernare," we find that
> it was also filtered through Old French to produce the word "governeur,"
> meaning "ruler," which gave us the English word "governor" in the 14th
> century.  So "governor" and "gubernatorial" are indeed very closely related.
>
> Incidentally, while the French were fiddling around with the Latin
> "gubernare," they also produced the word "cybernetique," meaning "the art
> of governing."  In the late 1940s, the American mathematician Norbert
> Weiner appropriated and Anglicized "cybernetique" as "cybernetics" to
> describe his theory of communications.  Writer William Gibson then modified
> Weiner's term in his 1984 science fiction novel "Neuromancer," coining
> everyone's least-favorite buzz-word, "cyberspace."

> ----------
> Do you ever wonder where a word or phrase came from?  Send your queries to
> The Word Detective, P.O. Box 1, Millersport, Ohio  43046.  We can also be
> reached via Internet e-mail at questions at word-detective.com.  An archive of
> previous columns can be found on the Web at www.word-detective.com.