The Latin word scribere means ‘to write’ and is therefore extremely relevant to this column. It forms the root for many words in English (and presumably other Latin-derived languages) that are related to writing. So you have scribes, people whose job it is to write things down.
Scribbling, the act of making meaningless marks or writing illegibly. Script, which can mean all sorts of things — a system of writing, the written version of a play; if you’re into computer programming, a set of commands. There’s ‘inscription’, referring to words that are written or (more often) engraved upon a surface. Manuscript, a document written by hand, and used colloquially to mean (among other things) the earliest form of a published book.
The word ‘subscribe’ does not at first appear to have anything to do with writing, but the word literally means ‘to sign at the end of a document’ or give one’s consent in written form — which I suppose is a more primitive form of typing one’s e-mail address into a box in order to receive a newsletter.
And then there’s the word ‘circumscribe’. The first part of the word comes from the Latin circum (around) and so it literally means to draw or write around something. Which makes it sound perfectly innocent; a simple matter of drawing circles in a geometry class. Yet, what the word actually means is to create a boundary. To draw a circle around something sets it within limits, and does not allow it to cross them. To circumscribe something is to hold it captive.
If this were not enough, there’s the word ‘conscription’. Again, this does not look too serious — it literally means only to put something in writing or draw up a list. Yet, if you referred to this weekend’s grocery list as a conscription you’d get some strange looks. The word is used to refer to lists of soldiers. For at least the last couple of centuries, it has referred to compulsory enlistment of soldiers. To be conscripted is to be forced into military service.
All of this makes words with ‘scribe’ in them sound very dubious indeed. And they are. Writing things down is dangerous, because it is physical proof of your words. In The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett introduces the “Nac Mac Feegle”, a race of people who are terrified of writing things down (and even more terrified of lawyers) for precisely this reason.
I’m not sure whether there are any real world cultures, which think this way, but when you consider how many melodramatic book and movie plots are structured around letters, or wills or contracts, it becomes clear that people have a reason to be very wary of the written word.
That old saying about sticks and stones breaking one’s bones is nonsensical — written words can do some very scary things n
— bluelullaby@gmail.com