Pax, a Truce Term

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, how are you doing? My name is Matthew.

I’m coming from Dallas, Texas.

Welcome to the show, Matthew. How can we help?

So a couple of weeks ago I was listening to the show and you guys used the word, PAX, P-A-X.

And it was a familiar word because I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya.

And when we were young and we were playing, let’s say, a game of tag,

And someone’s laces came undone and they needed to take a break or they fell and they needed to take a break,

They would say Pax.

And you’d probably cross your fingers.

That was like a more tangible expression that you are on Pax.

And so I just thought it was a coined word that we used to say, hey, pause.

But apparently it’s a real word and it has roots.

So I wanted to contribute that word and see what you guys think about it,

What its origin is, and a little bit more about the word.

Oh, that’s super interesting.

So Pax, P-A-X, like the Latin word for peace.

Right, which is where it comes from.

P-E-A-C-E, peace.

Nice, nice.

The category of words that it belongs to is truce terms.

These are kind of a folklore category for some things that kids use when they’re playing.

And they’re not widespread.

There is an entry for packs used in this way for a playground truce or a kid’s truce in the Oxford English Dictionary.

But there are so many of these around the world in all the different languages and even in English.

So when I grew up, if we were sitting in front of the television and you needed to go to the bathroom or go get something and you didn’t want somebody to take your prime spot, you would say, I freeze my seat.

And then you would go do your thing.

And the law of being a kid said that nobody could take your seat because you froze it.

Obviously, sometimes that didn’t work, but usually.

Do you know that one at all?

No, no, no, no, no.

There’s a really old one.

We may have talked about this on the show.

King’s X is another one.

King’s X was a term that people would say if they were, let’s say you’re playing tag and, again, you’ve got to tie your shoelace.

You might shout out King’s X or King’s X would be a place that you could touch and then they couldn’t get you or that they couldn’t control you or make you participate.

That’s an X like the letter X.

The letter X, that’s right.

Of course, there’s home base or truce or times.

Yeah, I was going to say I think what I said growing up was just time.

Like times out?

Yeah, just time.

Time.

And everything had to stop.

It’s just really interesting to see how far words travel.

And the interesting thing about English words that I’ve found,

I speak Swahili and other dialects,

But the interesting thing about English,

It’s the one word that would have different meanings and different uses,

Whereas for us we have a word for almost everything.

So we have a deeper pool of diction,

But then every word has one specific meaning.

For English it’s a word that you can actually toil with

And roll around and use it for different uses.

So I think that’s really cool.

That is cool.

That’s super cool.

Just to find our wildlife packs and see that it’s Latin-based,

And here we are in the streets of Nairobi, so far away from any Latin world,

And have it used in the right way.

I think that’s really cool.

Couldn’t have said it better.

Exactly right.

Well, thank you very much.

Our pleasure, Matthew.

Oh, Matthew, thank you for your contribution.

Thanks for joining us.

Bye.

Bye.

There’s a list that I found of some more truce terms.

Scribs, skinch, cree, kings, full stop, or barley?

I don’t know any of those.

Yeah, but they all belong to different school groups, different times.

And it’s almost always kids.

I mean, maybe you use them as an adult.

But they’re all about holding your place or having somebody temporarily stop the action

Or getting a chance to catch your breath before you go on to the next leg.

I love the image that Matthew was conjuring of these little kids in Nairobi saying Pax.

Yeah, coming down through the British tradition there and descending from Latin how many thousands of years ago.

Yeah, super cool.

Super cool.

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