Status

In my review of Latin, I have started to notice the implications of Latin-based words. One of the first verbs I ever learned was "sto" meaning "to stand." It is a first conjugation verb and the perfect participle of the verb is "status" with a passive meaning "to have been stood." This stuck me as brilliant.

When I was choosing a college, I was fortunate to have a number of good alternatives and was completely undecided. To help me make a choice, I went to some of my high school teachers who had attended the potential choices. In retrospect, I am surprised by the factor that led their recommendations: status. Each teacher recommended a school that had nothing to do with me or my interests, but was simply a maximization of "status."

Over time, I have understood that "status" is exactly as the Latin means. The idea of a college with status was that it would stand me up. The passivity conferred by status does not confer competence, joy or wisdom. It might increase income. But over time, it tends to strengthen the ego and weaken the individual.

"Coining" A Term?

All of the U.S. coins bear a Latin phrase "E Pluribus Unum." Even non-Latin readers know that it stands for "one from many" and that it refers to the founding of the country as Thirteen Colonies came together as one. But the phrase caught my attention recently.

Some of my quarantine time has been dedicated to a review of basic Latin grammar. I was studying comparative adjectives and adverbs and came across "plures," the Latin word for "more." The positive form of the comparative "more" is "many" and translated by "multi." So, the accurate translation of "e pluribus unum" is "one from more." To render "one from many" would require "e multis unum." So why the error?

"One from more" seems strange as it would imply that the one or "unum" is added to by others. In fact, that phrasing seems appropriate in an earlier usage by Cicero where he discusses friendships and family. He hold that the love of others (plures) is added to the love of oneself (unus). This sense of "more" added to oneself seems lovely in its comparative lift.

So why was the comparative and not the positive used? One idea is that Pierre Eugene du Simitiere, the person who introduced the term, was an artist and not skilled in Latin. However, the fact that other founders were skilled in Latin and yet agreed to the motto does not seem to support this idea. Then I realized that "e pluribus unum" has one special quality that "e multis unum" does not have - it is formed by thirteen letters.