海角大神

An article in The New York Times recently suggested that languishing 鈥� a state of being distracted, feeling unmotivated, muddling through one鈥檚 days 鈥� might be 鈥渢he dominant emotion of 2021.鈥� It prompted etymological speculation in the online comments. 鈥淲hy is the word anguish inside of languish? Is l for 鈥榣azy鈥�?鈥� a reader from Wisconsin wondered. Another from New York joked that languish was just anguish but 鈥渕ore French. OK! l鈥檃nguish it is.鈥澛�

It may seem that these two words must be related, but etymologically they are more like opposites than cousins. Languish comes from the Latin verb 濒补苍驳耻别炉谤别, 鈥渢o be faint, feeble ... idle, inert,鈥� which derives from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *sleg- (鈥渟濒补肠办鈥�). 尝补苍驳耻颈蝉丑鈥檚 roots suggest a lack of tension, and its English relatives are floppy words such as relax, slack, lax, and possibly even sleep. It can also be defined as 鈥渢o become feeble鈥� (鈥渢he plant languished in the heat鈥�) and 鈥渢o suffer neglect鈥� (鈥渢he bill languished in the Senate鈥�), according to Merriam-Webster. 聽 聽 聽

While languish is loose, anguish is constricted. It comes from the Latin angustia (鈥渘arrowness, lack of space鈥�) and, further back, from the PIE root *angh- (鈥渢ight, painfully constricted, painful鈥�). Appropriately enough, its English relatives include anger and anxiety.听

In more roundabout ways, both comments on the Times article hit on something true. Languish did arrive in English from French 鈥� Anglo-Norman, to be exact 鈥� along with pork and beef and other such high-status words during the Norman Conquest (as we discussed in the May 10 issue). Anguish arrived in the same way at the same time, though, so one isn鈥檛 any more French than the other.

And just as the Norman pork and beef joined the Old English swine and cow, English already had a Germanic word that did much of the same job as languish 鈥� sloth. Today we associate sloth with laziness; Merriam-Webster defines it as 鈥渄isinclination to action or labor.鈥� In the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods, it bore a closer resemblance to languishing. Sloth was used by early theologians to translate the Greek acedia (鈥渨ithout care鈥�), described by medievalist Siegfried Wenzel as 鈥渆xhaustion and listlessness caused by the monotony of life and the immediate surroundings.鈥� Acedia affected desert-dwelling monks, who had committed themselves to solitary lives of prayer but sometimes had difficulty feeling the spiritual joy that was supposed to accompany their devotion.听

So while the 鈥渓鈥� in languish doesn鈥檛 stand for 鈥渓azy,鈥� the two aren鈥檛 semantically unrelated. However interesting languish and anguish are as words, though, I hope if there鈥檚 a dominant emotion of 2021, it鈥檚 a different one from Norman French 鈥� how about comfort or delight?