How we came to suffer our franchises
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Let鈥檚 get back on the stump this week and look at a few more words associated with political campaigning.
A snollygoster sounds like a monster from a folk tale but is actually an unprincipled politician who 鈥渨ill go to any lengths to win public office.鈥 It was originally 19th-century slang from the southern United States, but it was brought to national attention by former President Harry Truman when he called hypocritical politicians 鈥渟nollygosters鈥 in the 1950s.聽
One might argue that snollygosters are possessed by empleomania, 鈥渕ania for holding public office.鈥 This is a Spanish word that made its appearance in English in the mid-19th century, derived from empleo-, 鈥渆mployment,鈥 and mania, an 鈥渆xcessive desire鈥 or 鈥渙bsessive need.鈥 Many politicians seem to suffer from this. 聽
To achieve their dreams, these empleomaniacs need votes, and nowadays they calculate their campaigning based partly on the science of psephology. This word was coined in the 1950s to give a name to 鈥渢he statistical analysis of trends in voting,鈥 but what psephologists really seem to enjoy is forecasting the results of upcoming elections. Psephology is a combination of psepho- (Greek for 鈥減ebble鈥) and -ology (鈥渢he science of鈥).聽 This makes sense when you realize that in some ancient Athenian elections votes were cast by putting small stones in a ballot box. Psephology has had a rough couple of years, having failed to predict both 鈥淏rexit鈥 and the election of President Trump.聽
In English, the right to vote itself is sometimes referred to as suffrage. There is a folk etymology on the internet that holds suffrage to be derived from to suffer, in the older sense of 鈥渁llow鈥 or 鈥減ermit,鈥 as when Jesus says 鈥淪uffer little children to come unto me,鈥 in the King James Bible. Various groups 鈥 non-property-owning white men, African-Americans 鈥 were eventually 鈥渟uffered鈥 to vote, the story goes, and so achieved 鈥渟uffrage.鈥 Actually, voting has nothing to do with suffering, at least linguistically. (Politically, it may be a different story.) It comes from the Latin word suffragium, which simply means 鈥渁 vote.鈥
Franchise is another word for this crucial civic duty. It comes to English from the Old French word for 鈥渇reedom,鈥 and in the 14th century it was a legal term indicating that a person or municipality was free from certain governmental rules. From there it came to mean the granting of 鈥渁 special privilege or exclusive right,鈥 which, by the 18th century, included the right to vote in elections.聽
Now I鈥檝e finally slaked my psephologomania, my 鈥渙bsessive interest in political words.鈥 That鈥檚 not a word, in the world鈥檚 opinion, but it should be.聽