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How the "Witch of Wall Street" relates to the word "commiserate." Plus, the interesting origin of "influenza" and other disease names.
| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
|Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course.
|HOST: Mignon Fogarty
|VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475)
|Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
|Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.
|Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
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http://twitter.com/grammargirl
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.
Today, we're going to talk about commiserating with each other, the interesting origin of the word "influenza" and a few other disease names, and fun names for a helpful friend.
How Do You Use the Word ‘Commiserate?’
One of our listeners called in recently to ask about the word “commiserate.”
"Hi Mignon. This is Kate from Colorado, and my friend Anna from Louisiana and I were discussing the word 'commiserate' the other day, and we had both used it in the context of really experiencing the same situation or feeling the pain of somebody that expressed a difficult situation. So if you were commiserating about work it was that we were sharing in that sorrow or difficulty together. But we also recognize that the dictionary definition simply says to sympathize or to empathize or have pity, and that gives the impression of being outside of the situation and expressing sympathy or sorrow for what they're experiencing. So are we using it incorrectly, and is there a different word that we should be using? Because you could simply say, 'Oh, I relate to you,' but that doesn't have the same kind connotation. For me, 'commiserate' has always had that connotation of sharing it with that person, and I think that he's in the context of like, 'Oh yeah we sat, we drink beer, and commiserated about the week,' but I don't know that we're using it correctly, so I would love to hear your input on that. Thanks so much. Love the show. Bye."
Thanks for the question, Kate. So do you commiserate about an experience? Do you commiserate someone? Do you commiserate with someone?
Well, the answer is all of the above.
Let’s start at the beginning.
“Commiserate” means to feel pity or compassion about another person’s misfortune. It comes from the Latin “commiserati,” meaning "to pity or bewail." That word in turn is a mashup of “com,” meaning "together or in combination," and “miser,” meaning "unhappy, wretched, or in distress."
Other words that come from this root include “miserable,” meaning "wretchedly unhappy," and “misery,” meaning "a state of great sorrow, misfortune, or distress."
Interestingly enough, another related word is “miser,” meaning a covetous person who hoards their money. This meaning seems to rely on a belief that pinching pennies and refusing to share your wealth will lead to unhappiness.
Charles Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge is a fictional example of this belief. A real-life example is Hetty Green, a 19th-century American financier known as “the witch of Wall Street.” Although Green was a multi-millionaire, she wore ragged clothes, went to charity clinics instead of regular doctors, and supposedly refused to treat her son’s leg when it was injured, leading to its eventual amputation.
I think we can guess that Hetty was, indeed, pretty darn unhappy.
But back to our original question: how do we properly use the word “commiserate?” Well, There are a few options:
Both of these usages are valid, but they’re somewhat rare. Today, it’s more common to hear “commiserate” used these two ways:
Saying that you commiserate with someone is the most common way the word is used today. So you aren't using it incorrectly, Kate! You're using it in one of the more common ways, it's just that there are other ways to use it too. Thanks for asking.
Until our next podcast, please know that I commiserate with all of your grammar frustration and will do my best to help.
That segment was written by Samantha Enslen who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at DragonflyEditorial.com or on Twitter as @DragonflyEdit.
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Influenza, Measles, and More: The Origins of Disease Names
I got my flu shot this week, and it reminded me of the interesting origin of the word "influenza."
It comes from Latin and the idea that our well-being is *influenced* by the stars. The Latin word, "influentia" meant "to flow into," and according to World Wide Words, in the astrological sense, "influence" referred to "an ethereal fluid given off by the stars that was supposed to affect humans."
At first, "influenza" referred to any number of diseases. For example, you can find references that call scarlet fever "influenza di febbre scarlattina."
Multiple sources say the word "influenza" came to English directly from Italian after one particularly severe disease outbreak that started in Italy in the early 1740s and spread throughout Europe. The first example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1743 edition of "The London Magazine" and reads "News from Rome of a contagious Distemper raging there, call'd the Influenza." It seems the name spread along with the disease.
Also the shortened version, "flu" is spelled F-L-U today, but was originally spelled F-L-U-E.
Malaria
Malaria is another disease name borrowed directly from Italian. Today, we know it's caused by protozoans that can infect you when you're bitten by mosquitos, but the name means "bad air" because in the 1700s people just knew that it was a disease that spread in hot, marshy areas with, presumably, bad air.
And you'll recognize that "mal-" prefix in a lot of words once you think about it, which means things like "bad, wrong, and improper,": People can be maltreated, maladjusted, or malcontent. People can commit malpractice or malfeasance. "Malevolence" means "bad wishing," and if you have a malaise, you are in bad ease. And "malady" comes from parts that roughly mean "a badness that is had or received."
Moving on…
Mumps
Mumps also has an interesting origin.
It's caused by a paramyxovirus and makes your salivary glands swell, which makes your face and neck look puffy and can make it painful to chew or swallow. The name seems to come from the way people look when they are infected because before mumps was the name of a disease, it was a verb that meant to grimace or mumble, and in Scottish English it can mean to grumble or complain. The OED says it now often appears in the phrase "to mump and moan" as in "You aren't going to mump and moan about the high price of cheese, are you?"
It also meant to have "a fit of melancholy or ill humor," and the OED suggests comparing it to this other delightful old word: "mubble fubbles," which was a 16th century term for being depressed or in low spirits (as in "She's in her mubble fubbles").
Rubella
The story of rubella's name is simple, but interesting. The viral infection is also called the German measles, but the name "rubella" comes from the Latin word for "reddish" because people who are infected often get a bad red rash.
"Rubellus" is the same root that gives us the words "rubric" and "rust."
Measles
And finally, believe it or not, the name "measles" can actually be traced back to the same Latin root that gave us "commiserate," the root that meant "unhappy, wretched, or in distress" and also gave us the words "misery" and "miser." How's that for what one of my college English professors called "whole circle fullness"!
It's not the origin—the actual origin for the name "measles" comes from similar words that meant "blood blister" or "red spot" in a lot of old Germanic languages, like the middle Dutch word "masel"— but both the Oxford English Dictionary and Etymonline say the pronunciation and spelling of "measles" were heavily influenced by the word that meant "misery."
And you may never have made the connection—I never did—but "measly" meaning small, as in "I can't believe I delivered pizza in the snow for those measly tips," is the very same word as "measly" meaning infected with measles. It just took on an additional, colloquial use to also describe things that are insultingly small. It never would have occurred to me that the two words are related, but there you go!
——-
Finally, I have a familect story from Jinxy.
"Hi, Mignon. My name is Jinxy, and I'm calling about a great familect story my best friend lives in the apartment above me, and we have a silly way of referring to ourselves and each other.See I am the person who watches her kid, and she is the person who does things like get me pretty things, and I also fixed things for her. I do all the things a husband would do like hanging her pictures, fix things around the house, work on her car, and she'll buy me nice things, and lend me money. She does work, and I'm the stay-at-home-dad kinda person for her, and we're just platonic friends for life. So she is my myfe, and I am her hersband, We are hersband and myfe. I hope that familect story is something fun for you, and maybe somebody else is hersband and myfe out there too. Bye."
Thanks for sharing your story, Jinxy! I think you're so very lucky to have such a good friend.
We include the number for the voicemail line in every weekly Grammar Girl newsletter, so if you want to call and can never remember the number, sign up for the newsletter, which you can do at Quick and Dirty Tips dot com
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.
Thanks to my audio engineer, Nathan Semes, and my editor, Adam Cecil. Our assistant manager is Emily Miller, who is trying to teach her kitten how to walk on its hind legs. And our marketing and publicity assistant is Davina Tomlin.
That’s all. Thanks for listening.
Resources for the "commiserate" segment:
Encyclopedia Britannica, Hetty Green. Accessed January 28, 2022.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, commiserate, accessed January 28, 2022.
Online Etymology Dictionary, commiserate. Available by subscription only, accessed January 28, 2022.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, commiserate. Available by subscription only, accessed January 28, 2022.