SENATE: a group of old men

　　Our sometime comment about the “nine old men” of the Supreme Court indicates that our young nation doesn’t look upon old age with as much respect as the Romans did. For their word senatus, “senate,” derived from the Latin senex, “an old man,” and their senate, thus, was a revered council of elders. We Americans are more apt to look upon old age as senile, which also is a derivative of senex.

　　TAMMANY: an Indian saint

　　Tammany Hall was founded in New York City as a private social club in 1789. It was said to have been sharpened into a political weapon by Aaron Burr, and with its new power practically swung the political election to Thomas Jefferson. People were indignant and complained about a private club playing politics. So Tammany split up. One half took out a charter as a social and benevolent outfit, bought a meeting-place called “The Hall,” and rented the space to the other and political half. They borrowed the name for their association from a Delaware Indian chief of the 17th to 18th centuries called Tammany or Taminy. Chief Tammany was described as a friend of George Washington, and may have been the Indian with whom William Penn had his famous negotiations for the land which became Penn’s woods, or Pennsylvania. Later on the Delaware chief was facetiously canonized as the patron saint of the republic, and so for more than 160 years New York City has often been ruled by the loyal Sons of Saint Tammany.

　　7. War Words and Their Histories

　　ADMIRAL:a Saracen chief

　　Originally an admiral was an amir, or a Saracen chief. The amir-al-bahr was commander of the sea.Amir,"commander," al,"the ,"bahr,"sea."This was his official title in the early days of Spain and Sicily.The first tow parts of the Arabic word were taken into French as amiral which was later reinterpreted as admiral due to the equivalence of Old French a-and Latin ad-.This word passed into English and was associated with the navy as early as the 13th century.Later,a flagship was called the Admiral which led to the word's application in modern English to a sea commander.

　　ALARM: to arms'

　　If we are alarmed at any time, we should spring to arms for that is what the Italian cry all'arme meant.In later years the Italians combined the two word s into allarme and the meaning was extended from the military command itself to the emotion was fright that had been felt on hearing it shouted.Now,very often, alarm has only to do with the warning of the morning alarm clock.The word had even reached this low point at the time of Samuel Pepys who noted in his Diary on July 15,1665, after a hard day at the Exchequer:"And so to bed,to be up betimes by the helpe of a larum watch,which by chance I borrowed of my watchmaker today which my owne is mending."

　　AMNESTY:loss of memory

　　When a lawyer begs amnesty for his client, he is actually asking the judge to have and attack of amnesia.The first person in history to grant amnesty was reported to have been a Greek general who said that he would forgive his enemies and " not remember"(Greek a-,"not,"mnasthai,"to remember")their misdeeds.And from this we inherited our two English words, amnesia,"loss of memory ,"and amnesty ,"a pardon for offenses."

　　ANNOY:once a military term

　　In the 16th century the English had a Jury of Annoyances to deal with such public nuisances as the "slaughter of bestes within the cyte."The word annoy was much stronger then.An attacking enemy would "annoy a town."This term ternm traces back by changes of spelling to the Latin phrase in odio which meant "in hatred."The French took the Latin word over in the derived form enuier,"displease,"and from this term we inherited in English the tow words annoy and ennui,the fist meaning "to displease"and the second,"the act of being bored by unpleasantness,"or just boredom in general.Another useful English word comes from the same Latin parentage.The word could have been annoy-some but we reduced this to the less awkward word noisome,meaning"disgusting," "offensive,"which is the extremity of annoyance.