Appropriate

In the beginning was a word, and the word was 'pǝtḗ'. It meant father, and you can still see it in words like 'paternal', and 'pater noster'. These words entered English via French, which formed in French from the Latin 'pater'. Not much of a change for 2000 years. Another word that started it's journey in the same place is 'property', from the Latin 'propri', meaning 'one's own'. The connection between paternity and property is not immediately obvious, but someone, somewhere back in time must have thought that there must have been a worthwhile relationship between the two ideas because they both share the Indo-European root 'pǝtḗ'. It does not seem an appropriate connection in this day and age of political-correctness and gender equality. Why should property be of the father?

Talking of appropriate, composed of the elements 'ap-', 'propri', and '-ate', an appropriate example is needed: My behaviour at the dinner party was appropriate to my personality. And an example of my behaviour: Without much forethought, I appropriated my host's dialect to shameful comic effect. It is a pity that inappropriate does not sound right as a verb.

We have here a word that has a handful of meanings, none of which seem particularly related to it's original use of its root. It can mean 'suitable', or 'belonging to something', and as a verb, 'to take for oneself', with hints of thievery to boot.

I think that 'to appropriate' is one of the most accurate verbs we have for explaining the historical distribution of words. When a word moves from one language to another it is called a loan-word, which I believe gives the impression that the speakers offered it. And we know this is not really true. How often have you asked permission from someone to use that really useful word you just heard them use? More likely you'd say, "Great word. I'm gonna nick that off you." And more realistically you just go ahead and use it, building up your own understanding, your own uses. You give it your own context. You appropriate it. And this is exactly how the evolution of language works.

It's very difficult to completely impose a language on a population. The population will only ever take what is most useful to them. As the Normans discovered when they conquered England. Technically England then became a bilingual society, where French was the language of administration and English the language of day to day living. But the English clearly found uses for certain French words outside of admin. A prime example: you farm the English cows, calves, deer, hens, sheep and swine, but eat the French beef, veal, venison, poultry, mutton and pork. You give a French cordial welcome to virtual strangers, but a hearty English welcome to your friends. You admire the French language, but wonder at the English.

Roughly 30% of the English vocabulary comes from French, and a vast number of those words are even spelled the same way. It is one of the most useful tricks Michel Thomas has for learning French, in learning to pronounce this third of English in a French manner.

For sure, language is appropriated fittingly. But are words appropriated in an appropriate way?

This may at first sound like a bit of a silly question, however, if it is phrased once more, but in the negative, perhaps it will be a little more fun: Are words appropriated in an inappriopriate way? or, Are words inappropriated? After all, we are all aware of the existence of taboo words, even if some of us do deny them so much existence. And maybe this is just scratching the surface, since taboo words are not the only form of language that is considered wrong.