In a mixture of silliness and usage of a word rarely seen, I
have just stated a popular admonition, “Be nice or leave!”
My investigation of the word “clement” began back in
February when some inclement weather in the form of a snowstorm canceled a trip
to a restaurant to celebrate some birthdays.
In discussing the situation, the question came up if weather could be “clement,”
as well. Indeed, the word “clement”
exists in modern standard usage meaning “mild” when referring to the
weather. As it turns out, today the
weather is clement, so Richard and I are fixing to plant our garden. Stick the negative prefix “in-” in front of “clement,”
and you get the word most of us know and use for bad weather.
So what does the weather have to do with being nice? Is it easier to be clement or show clemency
in clement weather? The word “clement”
also means “inclined to be lenient or merciful,” referring to my new American Heritage Dictionary, 5th
edition. While most of us have
probably never used the word “clement” to describe nice people, judges exercise
“clemency” in dealing with offenders.
Teachers sometimes show clemency to wayward students, as parents might
show clemency to wayward children. In
these cases, the judge, teacher, parent, or other person exercising clemency is
being clement, or nice. Clemency also refers to “mildness, especially of
weather.”
What happens when we add the suffix “-ine,” meaning “of or
relating to” to the word “clement”? Of
course, we get the word “clementine,” which we can assume would mean “of or
relating to mercy.” When we are nice, are we “clementine”? Can we act clementinely? Sadly, in real usage, the word “clementine”
means either “a deep red-orange, often seedless, mandarin orange,” as a noun,
or as an adjective it refers to the two Popes Clement. (By the way, Pope Clement VII is the Pope who
refused to grant Henry VIII his divorce, thus contributing to the Protestant
Reformation, not an act of clemency according to Henry.)
We can buy clementines at the store, but we cannot in
accepted usage act in a clementine manner.
Perhaps we can start a movement to introduce “clementine” into modern
usage as an adjective meaning “of or relating to niceness.”
Go forth in clementineness and have a clement day!
I think we can behave "in a Clementine manner," if, say, we act like one of the dozen or so popes named Clement. I don't like any of those possibilities, so to initiate our movement to bring "clementine" (adj. = "of or relating to niceness") to the English language, why don't we just begin with something like "Today I wore my clementine dress," meaning a dress "the color of clementines". (I believe "clémentine" is the French color adjective.) From there, the word can come to be used in other contexts associated with "niceness," such as "It's a really clementine day," or "When I dined with my friend's relatives, they treated me clementinely." It'll catch on in no time.
ReplyDelete