The Words of the Week - Dec. 27

‘Commute’

Lookups for both commute and commutation were high this week following the announcement by President Joe Biden of 37 sentence commutations for inmates on federal death row.

President Joe Biden said he was commuting the sentences of nearly every inmate on federal death row, a move meant to stop President-elect Donald Trump from restarting stalled executions. … The move impacts the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row prisoners, in keeping with a moratorium his administration imposed on executions. The moratorium excludes people convicted of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.
— Francesca Chambers, USA Today, 23 Dec. 2024

We define the relevant sense of the noun commutation as “a change of a legal penalty or punishment to a lesser one” and the verb commute as “to change (a penalty) to another less severe.” Both words trace back to the Latin commutare, meaning “to change” or “to exchange.”

‘Xmas’

Xmas also experienced a wave of popularity as Christmas approached.

75 mph wind gusts disrupt Xmas travel
— (headline), The Liverpool (England) Echo, 23 Dec. 2023

The word Xmas is simply defined as “Christmas,” although we include a note that it is now used chiefly for brevity in advertisements, headlines, and similar settings. The shorter word is occasionally thought of as an attempt to secularize Christmas, as it appears to remove the word Christ. However, in this case X functions as a symbol for Christ, from the Greek letter chi.

‘Ethics’

Lookups for ethics were high this week, likely in connection with a congressional ethics report concerning a former congressman.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who briefly stood to become President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, was found by congressional ethics investigators to have paid numerous women—including a 17-year-old-girl—for sex, and to have purchased and used illegal drugs, including from his Capitol Hill office, according to a final draft of a comprehensive investigative report obtained by CBS News.
— Michael Kaplan, CBS News, 23 Dec. 2024

We define many senses of the word ethic, some of which are always encountered in the plural form ethics. Among the senses that can be singular in form are “a set of moral principles” (as in “an old-fashioned work ethic”) and “a consciousness of moral importance” (as in “they forged a conservation ethic”). The relevant sense with regard to the congressional investigation is one that is plural in form: “the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group.”

Many people puzzle over the difference between morals and ethics, so here’s a quick explainer to help distinguish them. Morals often refers to one’s particular values concerning what is right and what is wrong (“It would go against my morals to help you cheat on the test”). While ethics can refer broadly to moral principles, it is often applied to questions of correct behavior within a relatively narrow area of activity (“Our class had a debate over the ethics of genetic testing”). In addition, morals usually suggests an element of subjectivity, while ethics tends to suggest aspects of universal fairness and the question of whether or not an action is responsible.

‘Kwanzaa’

Lookups for Kwanzaa were higher than usual this week, as they tend to be at this time of year.

The celebration of Kwanzaa in December is all about community. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Visalia celebrated it in a small way last year. Encouraged by its success, they invited other churches, groups and African American organizations to collaborate on a bigger event this year. The goal is to share a meal, music, art and African-American culture with other communities and encourage other groups to celebrate their traditions.
— Donna Orozco, The Visalia (California) Times-Delta, 22 Dec. 2024

In 1966, Maulana Karenga, a Black Studies professor at California State University at Long Beach, created a new holiday patterned after traditional African harvest festivals. He called it Kwanzaa, a name he took from a Swahili term that means “first fruits.” The holiday, which takes place from December 26th to January 1st, was originally intended as a nonreligious celebration of family and social values. Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Gingerbread’

You may be surprised to learn that the bread part of gingerbread is not related to the baked and leavened food. The Middle English predecessor of the word was gingebred, and it referred to a kind of ginger paste that was used in cookery and as a medicinal preparation. Gingebred was borrowed from Medieval French gingebrat or gingembrat, a derivative of gingembre, “ginger.” The bread ending of the modern form came to be by folk etymology, whereby unusual words are altered to resemble more familiar words. It was in the 15th century that gingerbread began to be used for the cakes, cookies, and breads that we associate with the word today.