clxxxii

grease, n.

Definition: the melted fat of animals; oily or fatty matter in general (as for hair!)

[This English definition and all the rest this month come from the Oxford English Dictionary; the Latin definition as always comes from the Oxford Latin Dictionary]

Sententia: Again, there will not be a sentence from literature here, due to the late hour at which this is being written. I apologize, but in its place I have a cool linguistic note--if you have any questions about it, I'd be happy to answer them, since my explanation here may be a bit scanty. I heartily encourage all of you to take a linguistics course at some point, particularly a historical linguistics one!

"Crassus", though not overly common in the Aeneid, is an immediately recognizable word, since it is the famous cognomen of men like M. Licinius Crassus, a member of the first triumvirate. An interesting thing to note, however, is that both times that "crassus" appears in the Aeneid, it is with the word "cruorem" (in that exact case, in fact). Etymologically, its roots are in doubt.

Linguistically, however, the development of "crassus" is rather interesting. From the complex word, meaning both physically thick and mentally dense, we have two English derivatives: "grease" and "crass," each one taking on a specific dimension of the original word. And though "grease" at first glance perhaps appears to be pretty different from "crassus," it underwent relatively simple linguistic changes:

( > signifies "develops into"; the order of changes doesn't really matter; * denotes an unattested form which must have existed)

crassus > *grassus > *grasus (probably with a long vowel) > *grese?> grease (phonologically gris)

So, the change from c (k) to g is rather common, since the consonant just becomes voiced (Try saying both of them and putting your hand to your throat. Cool, isn't it? Other similar pairs are p/b and t/d) Then, the geminate (the "ss"--see how useful Latin is in understanding specialized terms?) degeminates, and becomes just "s," also by normal weakening of sounds.

The vowel is a bit more difficult. In the 3rd step the [a] probably became long, since an "s" was lost, and it subsequently underwent "compensatory lengthening" (a fancy term for saying that the vowel became long because the word lost another segment) . Now, the Great Vowel Shift (explained here, if you're interested, and also Wikipedia, of course =D) from Old English to Modern English would cause a long i from a long e, meaning that the Old English form most likely had a long e. Probably when "crassus" developed into French from Latin, the 'a' became an 'e,' allowing the vowel ultimately to be a long 'i' when English adopted the French word, and then the Great Vowel Shift occurred.

The really funky and unexpected spelling for 'i' as 'ea' comes from the fact that the English vowel system shifted after English's orthography, or way of writing down words, was set, and so English's orthography consequently does not match up very well with the actual pronunciation.

NB: This linguistic explanation, like everything else in the LVDs, is correct to the best of my abilities. If ever you have any corrections to make, please PLEASE tell me!