I was reading Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow, and came across an interesting passage.
quote:
He found after they had read to him for a few hours that he had to teach them the subject, explain the terms, do etymologies for them as though they were twelve-year-olds. "Janua--a door. Janitor--one who minds doors." "Lapis, a stone. Dilapidate, take apart the stones. One cannot say it of a person" But if one could, one would say it of these young persons.
First, I've never studied Latin(?) and I find these etymologies fascinating. The latter is of more interest that the first, since dilapidate is a rather strange word, and it makes complete sense knowing the word for stone.
The latter note is sort of annoying. Certainly one can't apply dilapidate correctly, but there is this little thing called metaphor. I haven't gotten too far in the novel, so I'm not sure if this was a quirk of the recently deceased Saul Bellow, an insight into the character Mr. Sammler, or just something interesting in the text. I'll post more thoughts about this matter when I get along in the book.
