Apocalyptic Words Script and Sources

 

Hello, I’m your host, Lina Kaufman. Welcome to Apocalyptic Words, where I’ll walk you through origins of words that are related to apocalyptic literature. We will expand possibilities of meaning and give you random conversation fillers.

So, why does the history of words matter? It can help us learn about cultures and languages other than our own. It can help you use words more carefully and precisely.

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Most of the terms I’m about to talk about are familiar, but hopefully after this you’ll understand why we use them the way we do.

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“Apocalypse”

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First, the word apocalypse itself. It brings to my mind pandemics, zombies, a meteorite, or aliens. Global catastrophe.

Apocalypse has become synonymous with “the end of the world,” but that is not what it literally means. In the Greek, apo- means “off, away from.” And kalyptein means “to cover, conceal” (1, 2). So, apocalypse means to uncover or reveal. That doesn’t sound like nuclear fallout to me.

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The word came to mean what it does now because of the contents of the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible (and yes, it’s called Revelation, not Revelations). John of Patmos' title Apokalypsis became our English Revelation. The word came to describe the imagery of John’s dramatic vision, and not the act of having a vision itself.

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Jacqueline Hidalgo, chair of religion at Williams College, put it this way: “It’s not just about the end of the world…It helps us see something that is hidden before” (3).

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Hey, that’s what I’m trying to do with this podcast. So, I guess this is an apocalypse itself. You are listening to an apocalypse.

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Sources:

1. Online Etymology Dictionary - apocalypse

2. Merriam Webster - apocalypse

3. New York Times

 

"Doom"

 

All right, so, next up: Doom. I think the similarity to boom  makes me think of an explosion that kills people. Generally, bad stuff and death.

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But, its definition was originally broader. Doom comes from a Germanic noun meaning something put or set up, like a law (1). It’s actually related to an older sense of the verb “do.” Doom shifted to mean more specifically judgement or sentence. You can see how we eventually got to our present sense of fate and death.

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The definition of judgement brings us to another point. The compound word doomsday literally means judgment day (2).

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Sources:

1. "doom, n." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/56805. Accessed 8 April 2021.

2. Online Etymology Dictionary - doomsday

 

“Armageddon”

 

I wanted to explain doom and doomsday before the next word: Armageddon. This is because people generally use these as synonyms. However, Armageddon is a specific place for a last battle during the day of judgement. Not the day of judgment itself.

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Let me explain.

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In Revelation, yup we are back here again, we get the origin of the word. In chapter 16, verses 14 and 16, John says about a dragon, beast, and false prophet:

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“They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty . . . Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” (1).

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There it is. So, what is happening here? Essentially, during this vision, the author John sees evil forces planning to battle on judgement day at a specific location, which he then gives the name of.

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That location is a Hebrew compound word *Har Mĕgiddō or *Har Mĕgiddōn (2). Please check the transcript for spelling on those, I don’t know how to pronounce ancient Hebrew. The first part means hill, or mount, and the second part, Megiddo, is the name of a place in northern Israel. You can actually go visit it.

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Sources:

1. BibleGateway Revelation 16

2. "Armageddon, n." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/10816. Accessed 8 April 2021.

 

“Cult”

 

Okay, with all this talk about religion, I thought it would be interesting to address another common word in apocalyptic literature: cult. Cults pop up all over apocalypse novels. This makes sense given the definition of apocalypse; these groups all claim divine revelation.

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But how did we get this word?

 

It comes from both French culte and Latin cultus (1). Around the 1610s, it meant simply “worship” (2). And way before then, the Latin meant a lot of things, from cultivation and tilling soil to education and style, along with devotion and respect (1).

 

Just like doom, cult went from a more general term to one very specific that we know today.

 

Sources:

1. "cult, n." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/45709. Accessed 8 April 2021.

2. Online Etymology Dictionary - cult

 

“Zombie”

 

Let’s move on to one of the most recognizable apocalypse words: zombie.

 

This one originates from West Africa. Two words contribute to zombie: nzambi, meaning god, and zumbi, meaning fetish or charm (1). At first this was the name of a snake god. Later it meant a reanimated corpse in voodoo (2).

 

The Online Etymology Dictionary theorizes that zombie also came from a creole word meaning ghost or the Spanish sombra, also meaning ghost.

 

The connection of snakes with zombies makes me think of Bathilda Bagshot in Harry Potter. But anyway.

 

Sources:

1. "zombie, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/232982. Accessed 10 April 2021.

2. Online Etymology Dictionary - zombie

 

"Virus"

 

Zombie apocalypse stories frequently treat the creatures as a spreading virus. So, where did “virus” come from?

The Latin origin means a poisonous secretion or malignant disposition or speech (1). The modern meaning came about by the 1790s in a slow progression after the term was used for venereal disease (2).

 

In his book Spillover, David Quammen writes that viruses weren’t understood when they were first named (3). Scientists didn’t know them to be very small agents. It made sense to call them this word, virus, that means poison because they didn’t know the origin of the sicknesses.

 

Sources:

1. "virus, n." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/223861. Accessed 10 April 2021.

2. Online Etymology Dictionary - virus

3. Quammen, David. . The Bodley Head Ltd., 2012.

 

"Pandemic"

 

Speaking of sickness, what does the all-to-common “pandemic” mean?

 

The Greek pandemos comes from pan- meaning all and demos meaning people (1). Think of democracy.

          

So, pandemic means all people. At first it didn’t necessarily have to do with disease. The Oxford English Dictionary has an example sentence of the general sense of the term: “Wood-oven pizzas and grilled everything are now pandemic” (2).

Pandemic can also refer to physical love as opposed to spiritual love. But that meaning is usually not the one used in apocalypse novels.

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Sources:

1. Online Etymology Dictionary - pandemic

2. "pandemic, adj. and n." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/136746. Accessed 10 April 2021.

 

“Quantum”

 

Changing topics, the word quantum comes up in apocalyptic science fiction. This word makes me think of Ant Man and confusing scientific theories. We really have Max Planck to thank for that.

 

First, quantum came from the Latin quantum meaning “as much as, or how much?” (1, 2). It’s also where Spanish gets cuanto meaning “how much?”

 

This word didn’t change slowly over time like a lot of the words I’ve presented. No, Max Planck brought the word into physics to mean "minimum amount of a quantity which can exist.” And then Einstein followed him by also using the term.

Quantum theory is based on this idea of the minimum quantity. But I’m not going to attempt to explain the science because I barely understand it.

 

Sources:

1. Online Etymology Dictionary - quantum

2. "quantum, n. and adj." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/155941. Accessed 10 April 2021.

 

"World"

 

Finally, let’s end on a word so common, you may wonder why I’m covering it: world. But hey, do you know where it came from? I didn’t either before researching this.

 

I thought world was similar to earth, meaning the ground. But it’s more about humanity.

 

The Germanic were means man and ald means age, so wereold means age of man (1). In fact, that’s also where the were in werewolf comes from (2). A man wolf.

 

So, the end of the world really means the end of humanity quite literally. What a cheerful note to end on.

 

Sources:

1. "world, n." , Oxford University Press, March 2021, www.oed.com/view/Entry/230262. Accessed 10 April 2021.

2. Online Etymology Dictionary - world

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I hope these origin stories were interesting to listen to. Now, go out there and Google words all the time because it’s fun and you might learn something.

 

I’m Lina Kaufman and this has been Apocalyptic Words. This podcast was written and produced by me and my sources are linked in the episode transcript. Thank you for listening.