Are you Nonplussed? Blame the Romans

Hello,

I’m currently reading a dictionary of Hiberno-English (the specific variety of English spoken in Ireland) because sooner or later if you write about the history of words you find yourself acquiring and reading dictionaries, for fun. Yes, well, I’ve always been a bit strange.

I came across a word in it which I’ve never heard or read in Ireland – namplush – which is defined as the state of being unready or at a disadvantage and is an English dialect word derived from nonplussed, which has Latin roots. Always ready for a quick trip into the Roman past, I headed for my other dictionaries for more information on nonplussed.

Some Roman ruins to get you in the Latin mindset

Nonplussed is the state of being perplexed or confounded and it landed in English around 1600. To nonplus somebody is to put them in that state of confusion where they are unable to decide or proceed (1580s). The idea is that when you are nonplussed nothing more can be said or done and it’s a borrowing from Latin non plus (literally this means no more).

This set me on the trail of the word plus and the plus sign (+). Plus in Latin means more, in greater number, or more often and it arrived in English around 1570 so it didn’t take long to find itself in nonplus thereafter. Plus arose from an Indo-European root word, pele (to fill). Clearly people have been adding numbers for many centuries before the 1500s, both in Rome and Britain.

The plus sign was well-known by the late 1400s and is possibly an abbreviation or shorthand for the Latin word et (think about how similar the letter t is to a + sign). Et means and in Latin and in French, it’s best known in et cetera/etc. The word plus was in use to indicate addition since the early 1200s. It’s not clear that the ancient Romans used the word plus in the mathematical sense we have today, or indeed that they were ever nonplussed, but without Latin’s et we wouldn’t have the plus sign and without Latin we wouldn’t have nonplussed, so I’m concluding this is one the Romans Gave Us.

Irish readers – have any of you ever heard of namplush? I suspect it is archaic or very regional.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)