Free Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things by Charles Panati

little time for education. If they needed certain book information, they turned to the one person in the region esteemed for his formal learning: the minister. Reverently, he was referred to as “the town person,” which when spoken with a heavy New England accent became “the town parson.”

    Evangelist . The term comes from the Greek evangelion , meaning “welcome message,” for the traveling preacher was regarded as God’s messenger, the bearer of good news.
    The four writers of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—were known as the Four Evangelists. Later, the term was applied to the religious circuit riders who traveled on horseback to their assigned churches in the western frontier of the United States during the 1890s.
    Monsignor , The term derives from monseigneur , French for “my lord.”
    Monk . From the Latin monachus , meaning “one who lives alone.” Many of the oldest historical records, sacred and secular, are writings of monks, who were among the relatively few learned people of the Dark Ages.
    Abbot . When Christ prayed to Almighty God, he referred to him as “abba,” which comes from the Hebrew Ab , meaning “Father.” St. Paul, emphasizing the theme, urged Christians to employ the term when addressing the Lord. Gradually, the head of a monastery was addressed as “Abbot,” to signify that he was the monks’ spiritual father.
    Nun . In Sanskrit, nana meant “mother”; in Latin, nonna was “child’s nurse”; in Greek, nanna was “aunt”; and the Coptic word nane meant “good.” All precursors of “nun,” they say much about the vocation itself. The word for the nun’s traditional garb, the “habit,” is derived from the Latin habitus , meaning “appearance” or “dress.”
    Vicar . The term comes from the same root as the word “vicarious,” and it connotes a “substitute” or “representative.” Vicars are Christ’s representatives on earth, and the Pope bears the title “Vicar of Christ.”
    The word “ pontiff ” stems from the Latin pontifex , meaning “bridge builder,” for one of the pontiff’s principal functions is to build a bridge between God and humankind.
    The word “ see ,” as in “Holy See,” is a corruption of the Latin sedes , meaning “seat.” It refers to the official headquarters (or seat) of the bishop of Rome, the highest level of church authority. The Pope’s residence was known as the “Holy Seat,” or “Holy See.”
    Handshake: 2800 B.C ., Egypt
    In its oldest recorded use, a handshake signified the conferring of power from a god to an earthly ruler. This is reflected in the Egyptian verb “to give,” the hieroglyph for which was a picture of an extended hand.
    In Babylonia, around 1800 B.C ., it was required that the king grasp thehands of a statue of Marduk, the civilization’s chief deity. The act, which took place annually during the New Year’s festival, served to transfer authority to the potentate for an additional year. So persuasive was the ceremony that when the Assyrians defeated and occupied Babylonia, subsequent Assyrian kings felt compelled to adopt the ritual, lest they offend a major heavenly being. It is this aspect of the handshake that Michelangelo so magnificently depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

    The handshake once symbolized the transferral of authority from a god to a king. A fifteenth-century woodcut combines the musical tones “so” and “la” with Latin words to form Sola fides sufficit, suggesting good faith is conveyed through a handshake .
    Folklore offers an earlier, more speculative origin of the handshake: An ancient villager who chanced to meet a man he didn’t recognize reacted automatically by reaching for his dagger. The stranger did likewise, and the two spent time cautiously circling each other. If both became satisfied that the situation called for a parley instead of a fight to the death, daggers were reinserted into their sheaths, and right hands—the