If you vouch for something, you guarantee that what you’re saying is true. In the early 14th century, vouch was a transitive verb that meant “to summon into court to prove a title.” Vouch was adapted into English from an Old French word meaning “to call” or “summon.” The root of both words is Latin vocare “to call,” the root also of such words as vocal, vocation, evoke, provoke, and convoke. The word voucher followed a somewhat similar path, originally voucher was a legal term that meant the “calling of a person into court to warrant the title to a property.” In the 17th century, voucher was used to mean “a business receipt,” or in other words, “evidence of a transaction.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Vouching for Your Good Name”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Emma calling from East Hampton, Massachusetts.
East Hampton, Massachusetts. Welcome to the show, Emma.
Hi, Emma.
Thank you. Hi, nice to meet you both.
Nice to meet you. What’s up?
Well, my wife and I were driving back from a road trip to coastal Maine the other weekend.
Nice.
And yeah, it was beautiful, very wintry.
And I was trying to say that I recommended something, but I used the word vouch.
And I realized that’s actually not, I can’t describe this recommendation. I wouldn’t vouch for it, but I would recommend it. And it occurred to me it’s such a strange thing to say. I’m not sure exactly what I’m saying when I’m using it.
Like, it’s almost as though you’re using, you’re suggesting that you’d like put yourself in place of something. And I wanted to know, yeah, the origins of that. Whether it had maybe a labor history or if it went back like to medieval knighthood or something.
Well, you’re right that vouch goes way, way back in English, all the way back to the 14th century, where it was used as a transitive verb that meant to summon into court to prove a title.
That is, you would summon somebody into court to prove that that person owned the property that they were selling.
And so it was this legal term involving calling somebody in to provide evidence.
It came into English via Old French. There was a word that meant to call or summon. And both that word in Old French and English, vouch, come from Latin, vocare, which means to call. And that’s the source of words like vocal and vocation, like your vocation is literally your calling.
So if you vouched someone, you call them into court.
And over time, it became used with the word for, you know, I’ll vouch for her.
I’ll guarantee that she’s who she says she is.
So, yeah, it’s an odd word, but you find a slight difference between that and what was the word?
Recommend?
Yes.
Can you talk a little more about that?
Well, honestly, I was wracking my brain.
I can’t remember the exact thing I was comparing it to.
But it was something that I would recommend and wouldn’t vouch for.
So I think maybe like.
Oh, that’s interesting.
And it made me realize, yeah, that maybe vouch is a little bit stronger than recommend.
And you’re putting your own reputation at stake.
That’s interesting.
Well, that would fit with its early sense.
Yeah, I like that.
So there’s a range of how willing you are to put your word on the line.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I love that.
So it’s funny because my wife and I are both lawyers, so it kind of is hilarious that it ended up being a legal term.
So, yeah, hair splitting is in your history.
These are the kinds of conversations you have on the road then.
I like it.
So what’s the difference between the part where you’re calling someone into court and you vouch someone by, like, actively making them come to the legal field?
And in the part where they actually like the vouch for like bringing someone like how did you get on the same side of the V, if that makes sense?
How did you get on the same team?
Yeah. So in the legal sense, to prove that somebody owned land, you literally would have somebody show up and saying, yes, I can verify that Martha doesn’t indeed own these acres that she says she owns because I was there when, you know, they were bequeathed to her by her mother, blah, blah, blah.
So that’s part of the legal vouching process was witnesses coming to say it because you might have a whole body of people who couldn’t read and write.
So the word of your neighbors or the word of your community was as important as paper.
So that’s why vouching really mattered.
I would call them as my witness because I believe in this.
Yeah, calling.
Yeah, that’s what Martha was saying.
So that vocate, it’s funny how often it shows up, you know, vocal, of course.
And evoke call to mind or convoke call together, provoke to call forth.
I love the hair splatting that you do.
It’s very much what we do as linguists.
Well, thank you.
This is fascinating.
Yeah, it is.
Emma, thank you so much for your call.
Call us again sometime when you’ve had this road discussion.
Okay, well, I love your show.
I really appreciate being on.
So thank you.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate it.
Take care of yourself and be well.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
And come to think of it, the word voucher followed a somewhat similar path.
Originally, voucher was a legal term that meant the calling of a person into court to warrant the title to a property.
And then in the 17th century, it was used as evidence of a transaction, a business receipt.
And now it’s a document that you can exchange for goods or services, like school vouchers, for example.
Yeah, exactly.
Every time I think about it, I’m amazed.
I never stop being amazed the fact that this history of this language persists.
This Latin shows up again and again in our everyday language.
It’s astonishing that something should have such endurance.
Indeed.
You talked about vocare, meaning call.
And it does have all this history and language, but you know, it doesn’t give us the word call.
And you can call us, 877-929-9673.
