海角大神

A good tool for checking on what current utterances have confused the public is Merriam-Webster鈥檚 鈥淟atest Trends鈥� list: 鈥淲ord lookups driven by news events, celebrities, sports, and more.鈥�

Recently it鈥檚 given us, for instance, Peter Baker of The New York Times referring in an analysis to a recent 鈥渏鈥檃ccuse moment鈥� in Washington, and Marc Kasowitz, the president鈥檚 personal lawyer, issuing a statement that his client felt 鈥渧indicated鈥� at that very moment. Both quoted terms prompted spikes in lookups. (For more on how the same moment can be interpreted so differently, see 鈥渁lternative facts.鈥�)

鈥淟atest Trends鈥� also recently captured the final tweet of the late Zbigniew Brzezinski: 鈥淪ophisticated US leadership is the sine qua non of a stable world order.鈥� With his death we鈥檝e lost not only a statesman but a man who used Latin in his tweets, and we鈥檙e the poorer for it.聽

The 鈥淭rend鈥� word that caught my eye the other day, though, was depose. Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island predicted on CNN that special counsel Robert Mueller would eventually 鈥渄epose鈥� the president.聽

Depose has two main meanings. The first refers to forcing a ruler from office.聽

The word comes from Latin (deponere) and means essentially to put or set or lay down. The next couple of definitions build on this idea, including a legal sense: A witness deposes (鈥渟ets down鈥� or testifies) that something is true.聽

Farther down the list comes the second main meaning of depose: the lawyerly usage meaning 鈥渢o take testimony from鈥� someone: 鈥渢o depose a witness.鈥澛�

That鈥檚 presumably what Senator Reed meant. Lawyers use depose this way all the time. 鈥淭o take a deposition from someone鈥� expresses the same idea less concisely but minus the potential ambiguity.聽

But words evolve. The evolution from depose referring to what a witness does to his testimony to depose meaning what a lawyer does to a witness follows larger patterns.

Puzzling over this, I thought back many years to a particular newsroom budget crunch. Money for reporters鈥� road trips would be tight. As the Monitor鈥檚 editorial business manager remarked, 鈥淲e鈥檒l just have to travel them less for a while.鈥�

鈥淭ravel them鈥�? As a transitive verb? Really? I travel, you travel, we are traveled?

I鈥檓 not sure how widespread this usage was, but I understood it. And the lawyerly sense of depose with regard to witnesses strikes me as of a piece with all that transitive 鈥渢raveling鈥� so long ago.

Depose in the sense of 鈥渙verthrow,鈥� meanwhile, is alive and well in the news columns. Reuters recently reported on a court ruling in South Africa thought likely to embolden efforts 鈥渢o rebel and depose scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma.鈥� A recent headline from the Zimbabwean Mail reported 鈥渙pposition ready to depose frail Robert Mugabe.鈥� If President Trump ever is deposed by Mr. Mueller, he won鈥檛 like it. But it will be an easier deposition than what the two African leaders face.聽