![]() John Paul II affirmed this purpose of the habit in his apostolic exhortation, Vita consecrata. Habits have developed over the centuries, but have always been used as an outward sign of a religious’ consecration to God. One of the most common questions is, “Why do they wear it?” Read more: Sisters, nuns, aspirants, postulants, novices: What does it all mean? As with all language, meaning is established by usage and force of habit.Many Catholic nuns and other religious (monks, friars, sisters, brothers, priests, etc.) can be seen wearing a particular set of clothing called a habit. Our most usual use of habit today, “acquired mode of behavior,” didn’t exist in Latin- habitus went from meaning “condition” to “how one conducts oneself” to “clothing.” That it was adapted into English in precisely the reverse order is an accident of history the order of meanings absorbed from one language to another rarely constitutes a logical development. (It is necessary to pay attention to its (the blood’s) color and condition.) There are also more literal uses, such as this one, from Celsus, author of a Roman medical treatise:Ĭolorem eius (sc. (For virtue is a condition of the mind, consistent with nature, moderation and reason.) ![]() Nam virtus est animi habitus naturae modo atque rationi consentaneus. In Latin, the original meaning was “state of being” or “condition.” Here’s a passage from Cicero: Interestingly, even though “clothing” is the oldest meaning of habit in English, it wasn’t the original meaning of its root word, habitus. The specific development of habit to refer to drug addiction began in the 19th century, with reference to opium. I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:Īnd to the nightingale's complaining notes Shakespeare, never one to shy away from polysemy, used habit with this meaning also, in a passage from Two Gentlemen of Verona: In English, habit progressed from meaning “clothing” to “clothing for a particular profession or purpose” to “bearing, conduct, behavior”-the word’s very evolution seems to mirror the premise that “the clothes make the man.” From “what one wears” to “how one conducts oneself,” habit continued to evolve, referring to appearance (“a man of fleshy habit”) and mental makeup (“a philosophical habit”) before, after several centuries in English, it came to mean repeated activity: “a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition.” (Her two sons went about in kingly attire.) ![]() Use of the word in Middle English by Chaucer is found in The Canterbury Tales: Indeed, the modern French word for “clothes” is habits (pronounced \ah-bee\). ![]() Like so many Latin-based words that appeared in English in the centuries following the Norman Conquest, habit comes from French. But these slightly unusual terms for costume for a particular profession or purpose were derived from the basic meaning of “clothing,” which is now archaic. ![]() The word habit in this instance means “clothing” and not “something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way.” This is, in fact, the oldest meaning of habit in English, one that is preserved today only in “nun’s habit” or “monk’s habit” and “riding habit” (clothes worn for horseback riding). In Hamlet, the famous scene in which Polonius gives his son long-winded advice (“Neither a borrower nor a lender be”) includes the line “the apparel oft proclaims the man.” But notice what immediately precedes this sartorial remark:īut not express'd in fancy rich, not gaudy Get in the habit of cleaning out your closet. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |