In an earlier episode, Dennis from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, was having trouble recalling a word that denotes the interval between the end of an event or of someone’s life and the death of the last person that has a meaningful memory of it. We had a couple of suggestions, but they weren’t what he was searching for. Fortunately, a listener in Geneva, Switzerland, wrote in with the likely answer: saeculum. The ancient Etruscans and Romans would make a sacrifice to the gods on behalf of everyone alive at the time of a significant event, and when all of those people had died, the gods supposedly sent a sign that a new sacrifice was needed. That period was called a saeculum. The Latin word was adopted whole into English to mean “a long period of time.” The genitive form, saecularis, meaning “of an age,” also gave us secular, referring to worldly matters of a particular period. Secular can also refer to something that exists or occurs through several ages. For example, economists use the term secular inflation to refer to inflation that takes place over a long period of time. Similarly, in his poem “The Garden,” Ralph Waldo Emerson refers to a slow-ripening, secular tree. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Saeculum, Secular, and the Roman Measure of an Age”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, this show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
A while back, we got a call from Dennis in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, who was asking about a word that he couldn’t remember, and it was a word for the interval between the end of something, like an event or a person’s life, and the death of the last person who has a meaningful memory of it.
And Grant, we had some interesting discussion about it, but we didn’t really give him a good answer.
No, we danced around it, came up with some stuff, but didn’t quite zero in on it.
However, I think we can answer that question now, thanks to Antony Taubman, who listens to us in Geneva, Switzerland.
He wrote us with an answer that I think is the right one, and it also sent me down this really cool etymological path that I think you’ll enjoy.
Antony says the word that this caller is looking for is the Latin word saeculum, S-A-E-C-U-L-U-M, which in English is pronounced saeculum.
It’s traditionally understood to refer to the period from an event occurring to the death of the last person alive at the time of that event.
And the earliest record that we have of this kind of thing is with the ancient Etruscans, and the Romans later picked it up.
But the ancient Etruscans would make a sacrifice to the gods at the beginning of what they considered a seculum.
And this offering to the gods was made on behalf of everybody at that time.
And when all those people died, supposedly in their tradition, the gods sent a sign that the cycle was over and a new sacrifice had to be offered.
So a seculum is a length of time that embraces even the longest life.
Now you’re probably thinking, that sounds a lot like an English word, seculum and secular.
And these are related. Secular in English, meaning worldly, comes from the Latin secularis, which means pertaining to a generation or age, and otherwise worldly as opposed to the eternal notion of the church.
This word secular in English also means existing or continuing through the ages or centuries.
I didn’t realize until I started digging on this, that economists will talk about secular inflation, and that’s inflation over a very long period of time.
Or scientists will talk about secular oak trees, which are oak trees that exist for a hundred years or so.
And that sent me to a wonderful poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson called The Garden.
It goes, many things the garden shows, and pleased I stray from tree to tree, watching the white pear bloom be infested quince or plum.
I could walk days, years away till the slow ripening secular tree had reached its fruiting time, nor think it long.
And so that was just such a thrilling way to end up.
Right. So you start with an answer to a question and you end up with a lovely poem.
Yes, we learn so much from our listeners.
We do indeed. And it’s nice to get that answer.
So, seculum is the answer to the question? The interval of time between an event or the end of someone’s life and the death of the last person who has a meaningful memory of it.
Meaningful memory of it. Gotcha.
If you’ve got more to add to the answers that we give on the show, we welcome that.
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