I was watching a documentary today when I was struck by a possible connection of English words that I'd never considered before.
Etymology is the study of the origins and history of words and it's within that field of thought that this latest wondering falls.
For our purposes today, an etymon is a word stem: a component piece found in related words. We can use the words etymology and etymon themselves as examples, both of which are derived from the Ancient Greek word: ἐτῠμόλογος (etumólogos).
I'm not a linguist so take all I'm saying with a generous helping of salt.
With that out of the way, what I wanted to know is if the English words mystery and mystical are related. Seems they would be, no?
According to Wiktionary, they are — both come from the Ancient Greek etymon — μύστης (mústēs) meaning "one who has been initiated."
On the page for mystery there's even a section of terms etymologically related to mystery which includes the words mystique, mystify, mysticism, mystical, and of course mystic.
So there you go. Not exactly news is it? Perhaps a bit obvious? Well yes, I agree. But, for a brief moment there I was curious and felt a small degree of wonder. From time to time I have these tiny moments where a potential connection within the language that I speak is noticed and I thought in this instance I'd share. What are your thoughts?
Moving on now to a new connection found on that same page is the terms mystery clock and mystery watch.
Here's something I had no idea existed, but there's clocks and watches out there where the mechanism of timekeeping is expertly hidden so that to the eye they appear to move as if by magic...
Maybe you've seen something like this out in the wild? Quite impressive for a clock.
The title of this post is infinitely more significant than the content, and comes directly from a line spoken by the star of the documentary that kicked this all off.
Mystery is the Context of Our Lives
One day I will write in a way befitting this intriguing statement.
Image by Jonathan Wachsmann
Sourced from Wikimedia Commons
Used under CC BY-SA 4.0