The dictionary of Etymology tells me that the history of the word 'story' holds meanings of 'wise-man' and the verb 'to see'. linkSufficiently piqued, I looked into that assertion. My Oxford Dictionary Of The English Language (dead tree edition), teaches that the word "story" comes to us from the word history* which in turn roots back in the Latin word historia meaning a "recital of events" and a "narrative designed for entertainment." There is more detail under the word history -- "knowing, learned, wise man, judge' -- but nothing about the verb "to see." That verb -- meaning "to perceive with the eyes" -- is very old, but there's no link to the word "story" that I can see. Interestingly, I learned that the word "to see" is linked to the Latin word sequi meaning "to follow" (cf. sequel) in the sense of "to follow with the eyes." Cool.
Some time ago, I wrote on the kinship between the words "face" and the verb "to view" (cf. visage) both in German and in English. Perhaps there is a missing link in German. The German word for "history," die Geschichte, looks like the German word for "face," das Gesicht. Alas, I find no connection between "story" and "to see." There is the notion of a "seer of visions" which nicely convolutes "to see" and "face" (visage), but the tense is wrong: an historian looks backwards while a visionary looks forwards.
One last thing that I learned is that the two words "story" and "storey" (British spelling) are closely related. "Story" as in "second or third story" essentially means "any of the parts one above another of which a building consists." That meaning came from tiered "stories" presented in the Middle Ages:
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*The shortening of "history" to "story" reminds me of Hispania morphing into Spain.
5 comments:
Muy interesante.
Yesterday a guy started talking to me about a commission - he muttered, had a thick English accent, and was the type of guy who said "Fink" when he meant "Think". Dude, come back when you have been through accent reduction class and can speak up a bit.
But the worst part about those stinkin' Brits is when they call the second story of a building the first storey. No, no it is not. The zero floor is the basement. The lowest floor above ground level is the first floor. Deal with it.
Thank you, chickelit, for checking it out and providing the more!!! I started down that path, disbelieving what was written, and almost left it off, but then the rest of that paragraph didn't hold together. So I went to my favorite online etymology to see what came up and found the Greek relationship to "see" under History:
late 14c., "relation of incidents" (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie "story; chronicle, history" (12c., Modern French histoire), from Latin historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries, history, record, narrative," from historein "inquire," from histÅr "wise man, judge," from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- "to see."
Related to Greek idein "to see," and to eidenai "to know.
Thank you, MamaM. I double checked my authorities and I can see the trace back to “to know” but they lack the connection to “to see.” You have better references!
That got me to thinking about ideas and whether they are visual. Well they are for me. I get ideas with my eyes open or closed. Consciously, for me, my eyes are always involved. But that cannot be true for everyone. Composers must have aural ideas. Or did they visualize their music? Disney had something to say about that.
I may update my post tomorrow with some insights gleaned from my German language etymology.
Again, thanks MmM.
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