Why doesn’t an usher ush? The word goes all the way back to Latin os, meaning “mouth,” and its derivative ostium, meaning “door.” An usher was originally a servant in charge of letting people in and out of a door. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Origin of Ushers”
We heard from Tom Mulcahy in Indianapolis who wants to know, why does an usher ush?
Or is that one of those verb-sounding words that isn’t one?
Why does an usher ush?
Does it come from shushing people?
No, that was my guess too.
They usher you down the aisle.
Right.
Right.
They’re leading you from place to place.
Right.
Actually, it goes ultimately back to the Latin word os, which means mouth, because an usher was somebody who stood at the mouth of a building, at the door.
Oh, interesting.
Isn’t that cool?
Yeah.
I love when we get questions like that.
Usher, os, from mouth.
That’s very cool.
Nice, right?
