{"id":9874,"date":"2022-04-24T04:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=9874"},"modified":"2022-04-23T20:39:45","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T03:39:45","slug":"pariah-a-word-with-a-surprising-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/vanuatu\/vanuatu-vanuatu\/pariah-a-word-with-a-surprising-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Pariah, a Word with a Surprising History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you ever hear a word over and over, and then suddenly wonder, Wait! Where did that word come from?<\/em> We\u2019re used to words that come from Latin, Greek, or French. These words are often related to other words we know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about pariah?<\/em> I\u2019ve been hearing the word a lot recently. \u201cPutin has become a pariah in the world community,\u201d they say. And, \u201dRussia is becoming a pariah nation.\u201d Putin obviously has earned the title. Nevertheless, I was still curious about the word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I looked it up. Can you guess its etymology?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a hint. It’s not from Latin. It\u2019s from Tamil, a language in southern India and Sri Lanka. In Tamil, pariah<\/em> or paraiyar<\/em> means drummer and by extension, someone from the lowest caste, a caste that was previously called untouchables. One of the duties of the pariahs <\/em>(or paraiyars) <\/em>was to beat the drums at festivals. Since leather was used in the drums, and because leather was considered unclean, only a pariah could beat a drum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As time goes by, words evolve. Pariah\u2019s<\/em> connection to a drummer has been lost, but the meaning of being an outcast has remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most famous pariahs in American literature was Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s The Scarlet Letter<\/em>. I imagine you remember poor Hester from your middle school or high school English class. She was shunned by Puritan Boston and required to wear a big, red A for adultery on her chest for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you think of some other pariahs from literature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just for fun, here are a few more interesting word derivations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLUE    from clew<\/em> meaning a ball of yarn. In Greek mythology, Theseus escaped from the Minotaur by finding his way back out of the dreaded labyrinth using a ball of yarn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHAMPOO       You might expect it to be a word invented by the ad men. Nope. It\u2019s an old Hindi word with a Sanskrit root that means to massage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TATTOO     We don\u2019t have many words that originated in Samoa, but this is one of them. Tattoo<\/em> comes from the Samoan word tattow<\/em> meaning to strike. Captain James Cook, who seems to have gone everywhere and named everything, brought the word back from Polynesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ROBOT      If I had to guess, I\u2019d say someone in an AI lab invented the term. But it was a Czech science fiction writer Karel Capek who introduced the term in the 1920s in his play. In Czech, robota<\/em> means forced labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find these and other words with strange origins in this article<\/a> by Finola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*****************************************************************<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Buy on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your favorite bookstore<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you ever hear a word over and over, and then suddenly wonder, Wait! Where did that word come from? We\u2019re used to words that come from Latin, Greek, or French. These words are often related to other words we know. But what about pariah? I\u2019ve been hearing the word a lot recently. \u201cPutin has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,87,2266],"tags":[2269,2267,2268],"class_list":["post-9874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vanuatu-vanuatu","category-war","category-words","tag-etymology-of-pariah","tag-pariah","tag-word-origins"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-2zg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5779,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/writing\/gaslighting\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":0},"title":"Gaslighting","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"January 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Words are an author's paint and paintbrush; they\u2019re our marble and chisel. 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