You'll die laughing: How the words comedy and cemetery are related

Q. Surely not

A. Surely so. Both words are derived from the Greeks verbs koimao 'I lull to sleep' and keimai, meaning 'I lie down'. This unlikely pairing arises from the fact that in Ancient Greece and Rome entertainment, komoidia, was usually watched in the prone position. So, it's no great leap of the imagination to see how a cemetery - koimeterion in Ancient Greek - is where one lays down for the 'big sleep'.

�

Q. Any other graveyard facts

A. Grave itself is a word related with the German verb 'to write'. The English word's immediate ancestor is Anglo-Saxon graef which is cognate with the modern German word graben 'to dig'. The same word reappears in the verb to engrave, as both are associated with the idea of hollowing out. The basis of all these words is the Indo-European root skar, 'to cut', and this in turn can be traced to another German verb schreiben and the Greek graphein, both of which mean 'to write'. If we look further back we find that graphein is cognate with another Greek word glyphein 'to carve' or 'to hollow out', which turns up 'hieroglyph': hieros 'holy' glyphos 'carving'.

�

Q. Surely no more

A. Another word for a tomb or grave in Greek is theke which, being from the verb tithemi 'I put', has a parallel in Russian in the noun kladbishche, 'cemetery', which is derived from the verb klast, 'to put.' This idea is echoed by the Greek verb keimai, referred to above, which was used as the perfect passive of tithemi and thus literally means 'I have been placed'.

�

Just to complete the picture, the Anglo-Saxon and Modern Welsh for a grave is bedd, which is cognate with modern English 'bed'.

�

For more on Phrases & Sayings click here

�

By Simon Smith