ROBOT:a slave

　　A long familiar word, but brought into wide notice by the play R.U.R.(Rossum's Universal Robots)written by Karel Capek in 1929. In his play these man-made mechanical robots overpower human beings.The term robot is from the Czech word robotnik," slave," which goes back to the term robota, "work."

　　ROBUST:like an oak

　　That robust man with the magnificent build is literally "strong as an oak," for our descriptive word comes from the Latin robustus ,"oaken." If you wish to make a statement that is strong and powerful, you coroborate it, or "make it like an oak," from the Latin cor-, an intensive, and robur ,"a very hard oak."

　　SCAVENGER:FORMERLY A TAX-COLLECTOR

　　When England was young, scavenger was spelled scavager and meant a "tax-collector " or "inspector." Later on an "n" found its way into the word, and by this time the scavenger had become a supervisor of street cleaning, which comes close to our modern meaning. The word derives from Anglo-French scawager, ultimately from Old French escauver,”inspect.”In the reign of Henry VIII, Leonard Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower, invented a dreadful instrument of torture that squeezed the body until blood flowed from the ears and nose.This was named”the scavenger’s daughter,”a revolting little tale that shows how the tax-collector has been loved through the ages.Of course, a scavenger now is an animal that feeds on a dead o r decaying carcass.

　　SCINTILIATE: gives out sparks

　　Some fifty years ago a lady named Ellen T.Fowler dashed off a relatively deathless line.” My wit,” she wrote,”is all of the P.m.variety and never scintillates in the moring.”As a matter of fact, the only thing that ever scintillates is wit,for the English language seems to have found no other use for the aord.In its special connection,however,scintillate is a highly descriptive word,as it means”to gtive off sparks”;it is based on the Latin scintilla which meant “spark”.And that sparkling tinsel on the Christmas tree comes from the identical Latin source, but in passing into French scintilla became etincelle.We English dropped the initial“e” and turned tincelle into tinsel.

　　SIMPLICITY: has nothing to hide

　　Simplicity is single in purpose and has nothing to conceal. It comes from a hypothetical Latin prefix sem-,”one,” and plico,”fold”.That is ,opened up,unfolded,laid out flat. The word duplicity, however, is from the Latin duo, “two”, and plico,”fold”.In this case the paper is “folded overtwice”and can hide something in to. Those who practice duplicity are double-dealing, the opposite of simple, or single dealing. They are trying to fool you. With the word diplomat, we turn to the Greek word diploma, “a paper folded twice, “which diplomats took along as their credentials, and which college students now receive as their reward.

　　STEWARD: watched the pigs

　　A steward in one of our exclusive clubs might not be pleased to know that his name used to signify” keeper of the pigs”. The word steward recalls the days when a man’s chief treasure really was his pigsty. To guard the valuable herd from robbers and wild beasts, a special watchman was appointed who was called a steward from stig,“sty” and weard,”warden”or”guardian.”Later on, wealth expanded from herds of swine to herds of cattle and to lands and the job of the steward was now to watch over all of these.In feudal times,the steward rose to great power,becoming a sort of agent for the lord of the manor.He leased lands and collected rents.In some cases he became a magistrate,sttling disputes and such.Thus,in Great Britain,until 1849.the Lord Steward of the Household even had judicial powers and was a minister of the British Cabinet.

　　THUG: an ancient gangster

　　From the Hindustani word thag,“cheat,” which in turn derives from the Sanskrit sthaga,”cheat,”from sthag,”conceal.”These East Indian thugs operated until about 100 years ago. Like modern gangsters they had their “finger men” who spotted the victim. When these thugs were in formed by their spies that a man of property was about to take a journey, they followed him until he arrived at some lonely spot and then, like our modern muggers, they strangled and robbed him. It was all presumed to be done in honor of their goddess Kali, but this ancient murder syndicate profited handsomely by this service to their faith. And their brutality gave us our word thug.