In the early 1600s, the term undertaker didn’t necessarily denote someone in charge of arranging funerals. It was a more general term referring to entrepreneurs who undertook the work of running a business. Mine undertakers undertook exploring a mine, and land undertakers acquired land for commercial purposes. A book publisher might be called an undertaker, and the producer of a play was referred to as the undertaker of that production. If your job was to care for the dead, you were an undertaker of that particular kind of work. By the late 1600s, though, the meaning of undertaker began narrowing to specify someone in the funeral business. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Undertakers Get Their Name From Business Rather Than From Taking People to Be Put Under the Earth”
Grant, the other day I was thinking about the word undertaker, and I had always assumed that undertaker was a word because that was the person who took you underground after death. But that’s not why it’s called an undertaker. Did you know this?
Oh, yeah. It turns out that in the early 1600s, the word undertaker was a more general term that applied simply to somebody who undertakes the work of running a business, like an entrepreneur. So there were mine undertakers who undertook exploring a mind or land undertakers, and book publishers might be called undertakers. Or the producer of a play was the undertaker of that production. That is, they were all undertaking the risk and responsibility of that job. Or if your job was to arrange funerals, you were an undertaker of that kind of work.
And then by the late 1600s, that meaning began to narrow. It’s a great example of linguistic narrowing, where the meaning began to narrow and specify somebody who took care of funerals. Isn’t that amazing?
Yeah, and it makes sense that it would specify there in that field because it requires some kind of euphemizing, right? Some kind of like, we don’t want to say too plainly what this person is doing.
Right, right. I’ve just always associated it with, you know, putting a coffin in the ground. But it was a much more broad term before that. How about that? I love it.
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I wonder if ‘undertaker’ is a calque from Dutch, the other way around, or borrowed from a whole different language! In Dutch the word ‘ondernemer’ is still used in the broad sense of owning a business. As such, a common mistake for Dutch people to make in English, is to refer to themself as an undertaker, when they mean entrepreneur.
I was surprised you didn’t mention all the other instances in English where ‘undertake’ is still used in its older, broader sense, though specific in its own way. For example ‘undertaking’ to mean a big job or task. Or indeed the verb ‘to undertake’: to embark on a big job. And in reading a dictionary entry at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/undertake I realize it can even mean ‘to make a promise’ and ‘to take responsibility for something’, though I’ve not come across those organically, yet.