Of Monies and Monition

     The root “men-“ when externalized gives the meaning of being “mindful” of others, or reminding others. The latter has been known to be achieved by building monuments. The former is exactly reflected into the word “monitor”. When René Lesson came across a certain reptile who stood up on its two legs to scan its surroundings, he was reminded of his school days, and decided to call it a monitor lizard. This act “monitoring” is called, well, that, or admonition (for when you especially want to be hated). And if you’re a pro-monitor and adept at not having friends, you might even have developed a sixth-sense which tells you when an unruly child is about to be creative on your watch. It’s then called a premonition (“pre” is before and “mon-“ to think, or remind). But what if you still have a few friends left? You can tattle to the teacher of their doings so they are “reminded to be present at a certain time and place by an authority (or “summoned” made of “sub-” and “mon-“) and voila.

The evil connotations of “mon-“ go beyond Monuments and Men though. Aside from the fairly obvious monster (which is a personification of a reminder of bad times), the other is surprisingly unsurprisingly – “monies”. Amongst the earliest to mint money were the Romans. These mints were located on the Capitoline Hill in Ancient Rome, which happened to double-time as a temple dedicated to the patron goddess of Rome, “Juno Moneta”. “Moneta” was believed to be “oversee” or “monitor” Rome. The coins which came out of the Moneta mint (which itself is a corruption of “Moneta”), eventually came to be called "monies" and to “money”.

So, is money the root of all evil? Or is it the other way around?

Does Mensa International have anything to do with mind?

Mnemonic is formed of the root “mne-“ which means “to think” or “memory” in Ancient Greek. Anything pertaining to memory is thus a mnemonic. Pardoning someone’s actions, almost as if forgetting them, is granting them “amnesty”.

The root is also spelt as “men-” in PIE and “mens or mem-“ in Latin. All are related to “mind and intellect”. Words like mental, dementia (decreasing “mens-“), amnesia (absence of “mens’”), mention (a remembrance) mentor (a wise advisor) are all derived from here. Mentor becomes Mantri derived from Sanskrit (root as “manas-“) who are known for their Mantras (an instrument of thought).

The Greeks later spelt it as “maton”. Spawning all sorts of words like automaton (one which could think of itself), automation, and automatic. Minds have never been easy to read (about). Those who have been idle enough to try have had to inevitably deal with manias and maniacs. That being said, the real tragedy is not people casually forcing in “but Freud has been refuted”, but Mensa International does not derive its name from this root :/

Rainbow King

In Old English, the word was mostly taken to mean “rice” meant “mighty”, “wealthy” and “of high rank”. The closest semblance of it still exists in the German “Reich”. The root had its Latin origins in “rex/ reg”, and in Sanskrit as “raj”, all of which were associated with the concept of “kingship”, in fact a “rajah” in Hindi (a language derived from Sanskrit) still means “king”. From those roots we get words like regime ((time) of king), reign, regal, regiment (rule or guide, thus a routine) and region. ⁣
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The other meaning that came to be of “rex” and “reg” was that of “to move in a straight line” (thus ruler can be both, a ruler, and a ruler). It get mutated to “rec-“ and gives us a set of words which signify a “straight line”. Bridging “rec-“, and “reg-” we have words like “regimen”, which means a guiding set of rules, and “regular” and “regulate” which again signify a rule or pattern. A shape having all right angles is a rectangle. When you set something straight you rectify it. The extent of being straight is its rectitude, and movement in straight line is called rectilinear.

When you derive a name from these set of roots you get Richard, and this finally gives me an opportunity to make a dick joke. How “rich and straight” eventually came to mean dick or jerk, is as stupid and fitting a story as you’d expect of etymology. ⁣

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Somebody shortened Richard to Rich, and had a bad enough handwriting for somebody else to read it as Dick. Seriously. You either absolutely love, or absolutely despise etymology now. In either case, my job is done.⁣
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Picture: Visual representation of how Richard became a mnemonic for Rainbow, in "Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain". Happy Pride!⁣