No Longer Suffering in Silence

Good morning, children. Today's word is suffer.

[faint voice from somewhere in Oregon]

No, that is not a threat regarding today's activities, although I must say that the work I received on the distinction between uninterested and disinterested was rather poor.

By the thirteenth century, the word suffer was used to mean both endure and allow. You can, then, suffer pain or humiliation, but buried somewhere deep in the history of the word is the connotation that you are allowing the pain to hurt you. The permission connotation is more familiar to us in the word suffrage — universal suffrage, women's suffrage, etc. — a term which, I hope, brings little pain in a democracy.

[faint voice from somewhere in Arizona]

No, I am not familiar with the proposal regarding "illegal-alien suffrage."

Not too long ago, I heard a pastor unfamiliar with 17th century usage (i.e., the King James version of the Bible) say that Jesus told us that we should bring our children to him, even if we had to suffer to do so. A worthy sentiment, and certainly a sincere one, but unfortunately not an accurate rendering of "Suffer the little children to come unto me" (Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16 ). The pastor's linguistic error is unlikely to do any harm to his congregation, but I use it here as an example of the need to understand the language you speak. If you remember the hue and cry over a public official's use of the word niggardly (a word completely unrelated to the ethnic slur with a similar sound) ten years ago, you know where a lack of understanding can lead.

[faint voice from somewhere in New Jersey]

No, I am not trying to insult you [heavy sigh]. You do not seem to be paying attention this morning.

Tonight's homework: five original and reasonably literate sentences using the words suffer and suffrage (each word at least twice) correctly. For you in New Jersey, five additional sentences using the word niggardly.

Your writing topic for the essay due next Wednesday will in part test your understanding of the words disinterested, uninterested, suffer, and suffrage. Your essay question is "Do citizens of a democracy have a moral or a civil obligation to alleviate the suffering of fellow citizens?"

The Band of Brothers Is Reunited

"This story shall the good man teach his son ...

From this day to the ending of the world.

But we in it shall be rememberèd —

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ..."

Shakespeare, Henry V

Edward Moore Kennedy, requiescat in pacem

I Have an Interest

Okay, boys and girls, here's today's word: disinterested. And what does it mean? Anyone? Anyone?
[faint voice from somewhere in Massachusetts]
No, no, NO!! it is not a synonym of uninterested! Why would there be two synonymous words with the same root and different negative prefixes? The words have different meanings because the word interest has different meanings.
Are you paying attention?
[faint voice from somewhere in South Carolina]
Uninterested means simply having no interest in the most usual way we use the word. Eg., I am uninterested in advanced mathematics. I am uninterested in fashion. I am uninterested in your hurt feelings when I reprimand you for misusing a word in your own language.
Disinterested means impartial, unprejudiced. We hope that Sonia Sotomayor will be a disinterested justice.
[faint voice from somewhere in west Texas]
[loud noise of book being thrown]
No, you idiot, we don't mean that she will be bored by Supreme Court proceedings. We mean that she should have no financial or personal advantage to be gained by taking one side or another.
Do we all understand now?
[chorus of faint voices]
Fine. Let's practice. Homework for tonight: five original and reasonably literate sentences using uninterested and five using disinterested.
Class dismissed -- oh, and you out there in west Texas -- you're shrouded until next Monday.