Etymology in the News: Social Distancing. Both a Distance and an Embrace

By now, all of us know that we’re to maintain a minimum distance of six feet from anyone.

Anecdotally, I can report that people are doing their best to do so.

How far is six feet?

There are number of ways to measure and envision it.

If you have a standard English folding ruler — 72 inches — six feet looks like this.

Slightly less than two meters: 1.89 meters, to be precise.

Or, if you’re like me — or anywhere close to my height of 72 inches — you can picture the width of your outstretched arms. In my case, my “wingspan” is slightly over 72 inches. Barely,

Whatever your height, that span of outstretched arms has long been associated with an ancient word in English: “fathom.”

Interestingly, “fathom” wasn’t originally a measure of distance. It was associated with how outstretched arms could “embrace.” “Fathom” signified “embrace,” from which we get phrases like “I can fathom that,” in the sense of being able to grasp or embrace something.

That, I like.

A thousand years ago, it was spelled differently, using the “asch” symbol — “ae” — for the upper vowel sound and the medial, voiced form of the sound for “th,” named “eth.” Like this.

fæ∂m

Although spelled differently, it was pronounced just the same way we say it: “fathom.” The same word, intact. From a thousand years ago.

In the way the English language works, with our ability to transform words from their nominative to verbal and adjectival senses, we’re allowed to construct words that mean “fathomed” and “fathomable.” Old English had a verbal sense, fæ∂mian: to embrace or envelop.

A culture of seafarers, the Anglo-Saxons would’ve paid out rope on ships by arms’ lengths, a fæ∂m at a time. Today, a “fathom” in nautical terms is six feet of depth.

It’s an ancient word, recorded in English in the year 1,000, but with roots in ancient Teutonic and beyond, back to proto-Indo European.

There’s an irony here. That six-foot separation is — in a way — an embrace.

My favorite reference to “fathoms” is the Scottish “The Ballad of Sir Patric Spens.”

Sent by the king on a mission to Norway in the midst of winter — the worst possible time to sail the North Sea — Sir Patrick and his crew come to grief.

Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,
Tis fiftie fathom deip,
And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spens,
The Scots lords at his feit.

Let us embrace one another, as we may.

© Brad Nixon 2020. Photos courtesy of M. Vincent, copyright 2020, used by kind consent. Etymology courtesy A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, J.R Clark-Hall, Wilder Publications, 2011; The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Houghton Mifflin, New York 2000; Compact Edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford University, 1971.