Imminently Immanent or Immanently Eminent

Whenever I sit down to read a book, I make sure I have a sharpened pencil at hand. Over the years, I have developed the noble habit of correcting any errors I find for the benefit of the next reader. Recently, I ran across the word “immanent.” Immediately, I concluded that I had found a misspelling of either “imminent” or “eminent.” However, before I reached for my pencil, I reached for my dictionary, where to my surprise, I found that “immanent” is a word, which the on-line American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), defines as “existing or remaining within; inherent.”

The quality of “inherent” is important to understanding the concept of “immanent.” For example, I could not properly say, “I am immanent today,” in order to convey that I stayed indoors all day in my pajamas, drinking champagne and eating strawberries dipped in chocolate. (Actually, the word to describe that activity would be “decadent”!) A Google search reveals that the concept of “immanence” frequently refers to philosophical attitudes, specifically relating to religion and God. In my case, I can say I have an immanent belief in Shakespeare.

Not surprisingly, “immanent” comes from a Latin word meaning “to remain within.” Digging deeper into the history of the word, I found that “immanent” is a sibling of the words “mansion,” “manor,” “ménage,” and “permanent.” However, even though these words are related, we find some contradictions in meanings. While “immanent” involves intangible relationships, the other words involve tangible places or dwellings, although Elvis recorded a song, “In My Father’s House (Are Many Mansions),” combining the “immanent” nature of God with a mansion in heaven.

I also found that “immanent” is a cousin of “imminent” and “eminent”, through the Indo-European root, “men-“  However, with regards to “immanent,” “men-“ means “to remain,” but with regards to “imminent” and “eminent,” it means“ to “project, jut, threaten.” So while the words are related, the meanings of “immanent” and “imminent” and “eminent” go in opposite directions, from sticking out to staying in—a family feud of words, of sorts.

In closing, I want to relate a story of consulting the dictionary first from my junior high school years. When I was in 9^th grade algebra class, my teacher, Miss Tanner, wrote the word “horizontal” on the chalk board. My immediate reaction was she had spelled it wrong because the word sounded to me like “horizonnal.” Wisely, after class I went straight to my English classroom to look up the word. Indeed, Miss Tanner had spelled “horizontal” correctly. I went on that year to win the class spelling bee by knowing the difference between “stationary” and “stationery.” Now, when I have to say the word “horizontal,” I make sure to enunciate the “t” sound.

LAGNIAPPE: Since I used the word “immediate” a few times in this blog entry, I wondered if it might be related to all of the “im-“ words tossed about in this blog. It is not. “Immediate” comes from the prefix “im-“ meaning “not,” and the base “mediate” meaning “in the middle.” Put together, these parts of words mean “not in the middle,” or more specifically “occurring at once,” “near the present time,” or “close at hand.”

Run

Recently, I walked to town to run some errands. When I wrote this news to my daughter, the wording caused me to wonder why I didn’t write that I ran to town to walk some errands, or that I ran to town to run some errands. 

My first statement—I walked to town to run some errands--indicates that I traveled on foot to complete some tasks. My second phrasing—I ran to town to walk some errands--makes no sense, in that the English language does not recognize “walking errands” as an activity. I could run an errand to walk my dog but not walk an errand. My final phrasing—I ran to town to run some errands--indicates that I “moved swiftly on foot” to complete some tasks, when in reality I walked. I could have run to town, literally, to run my errands, as Center Street in Folly Beach spans a short seven blocks, with our condo bordering the beach side of those blocks. I would have become a bit winded, but I could have literally run to town to run my errands.

To address these musings, I consulted the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) on-line.  I first thought the phrasing, “run errands,” might be idiomatic. Since idioms don’t translate literally, they provide challenges in understanding the nuances of any language. For example, a Mexican friend from my undergraduate days, once told me that I “ate what a bird would eat,” trying to say that I “ate like a bird.” My favorite idiomatic expression from French is an idiom for a hangover: “J’ai mal aux cheveux” literally translates as “my hair hurts.”

Was I speaking idiomatically when I used the phrase “running errands” to mean I completed them? When I checked the definition of “run” in the AHD, I found my answer not under idiomatic uses, but way down under transitive verbs, entry number 16: “to do or carry out: run errands.” My usage was literal, but it has nothing to do with bi-pedal locomotion!

My research ran on about the word “run.” For such a short word, it is quite a workhorse. The AHD on-line includes 31 entries for “run” as a verb, 14 as a noun, and 2 as an adjective. No wonder I got confused trying to sort out the meaning of “run errands”!  In addition, the AHD lists several examples of “run” in verb phrases, meaning the verb “run” followed by a preposition, as in “run into,” and several idiomatic uses of “run,” as in “run off at the mouth” (or in the current case, the keyboard).

The AHD also includes an interesting note under “Our Living Language” about regional use of “run” meaning “stream” or “creek” or “kill” in New York State. Merriam-Webster on-line discusses regional uses of “run” as the past tense, instead of “ran,” as in “I run my errands yesterday.”

In its beginning, “run” came from Indo-European roots associated with “run” and “running stream.” Does this origin mean that I am not all wet in my musings? Or have I run this topic aground? Perhaps, I should stop the running gag and run along before my readers start to gag!

Dessert Desertion or Assert Dessert

THE WORD
 

Recently, I have been cogitating upon eating dessert first more than I usually do. Perhaps the companion to this entry on “Be-Lied,” “The Impossibility of Eating Dessert First,” explains why. During these meditations, it occurred to me that restaurants offer a dessert menu at lunch and dinner (or dinner and supper—see “Let’s go a-suppering”), but I have never been offered a dessert menu after breakfast. Why is that?

Granted, many breakfast items have qualities of sweetness associated with dessert items—muffins, croissants, and pancakes, to name a few. Some diners may not want to follow a breakfast of Belgian waffles with a piece of lemon meringue pie for dessert—sugar overload. However, couldn’t a sweet breakfast such as a chocolate chip croissant be followed with a savory dessert, maybe chicken pot pie? What if you have eaten a savory breakfast of bacon and eggs, eggs Benedict, or steak and eggs? Shouldn’t a diner be offered a sweet dessert menu in that case?

To explore this issue, I consulted the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) on-line. Dessert is defined firstly as “A usually sweet course or dish, as of fruit, ice cream, or pastry, served at the end of a meal.” By definition, dessert is sweet, not savory, so a “savory dessert” would be an oxymoron. So much for my suggestion of following a sweet breakfast with a savory dessert! However, I still don’t know why restaurants don’t offer a dessert menu after breakfast.

To complicate matters, this definition raises a second issue regarding dessert. By definition, dessert follows the meal. Therefore, if dessert is eaten first, can it truly be considered dessert since it precedes, not follows, the meal? For the throngs of us who do eat dessert first upon occasion, is chocolate pudding still “dessert” if it precedes the meal? If it precedes the meal, does it not become a sweet entrée? By definition, it is impossible to eat dessert first!

Interestingly, the word “dessert” comes from the Old French “desservir,” meaning “to clear the table.” In terms of enjoyment, eating dessert and clearing the table are incompatable. The AHD definition refers the reader to the word “serve.” The second definition refers to mealtime: “to prepare and offer (food, for example): serve tea,” and “to place food before (someone); wait on: served the guests a wonderful dinner.” “Serve” ultimately derives from a Latin word for slave, which adds a different perspective to an unappreciated cook’s complaint of slaving over a hot stove. Putting the prefix “de-,“ “to move away from,” in front of “serve,” captures the idea of moving away from serving the meal by eating dessert.

Dictionary notwithstanding, we still face the Eat Dessert First conundrum. Should we create a new word for a “sweet course or dish” that we eat at the beginning of a meal instead of at its conclusion? To that end, on the web site Prefixsuffix.com I found several prefixes meaning “toward,” including “as-.” Therefore, I propose to combine the prefix “as-“ with the base of “dessert,” “sert” to create a new noun, “assert,” which I assert (verb) means “A usually sweet course or dish, as of fruit, ice cream, or pastry, served at the BEGINNING of a meal,” thereby saving the intent of the Eat Dessert First movement! Perhaps, the slogan should go “Assert Dessert First!”

By the way, just to be a contrarian, the next time I eat breakfast out, I intend to ask for a dessert menu at the end of my meal. After all, chocolate pudding by any other name—AND at any point in the meal—tastes just as sweet.

NOTES: My stellar editor and husband, Richard Seegal, added a few musings of his own on the subject of dessert. First, he noted the phrase “just desserts” which refers to someone receiving justice. An on-line search led me to “Grammarist” and the distinction between “just deserts” and “just desserts.” Because of differences in the pronunciation and meaning of “desert,” with the emphasis on the first syllable and meaning “a barren or desolate area,” and with the emphasis on the second syllable and meaning “something that is deserved or merited,” people frequently mistake the phrase for “just desserts.”

Secondly, he pointed out that a lack of a sweet course after a meal would be a “dessert desert.” I add that children who do not get dessert because they did not eat their vegetables get their “just deserts.”