Words

Acknowledging that he was on dangerous ground, Bill Oddie said on the radio that ‘only civilised people care for wildlife’. This raises complex questions, but in a very narrow sense what he says is worth considering: ‘civilised’ originally meant ‘city-dwelling’ (from ‘civitas’, Latin for ‘city’). It’s often interesting to know the roots of words: ‘entrepreneur’ literally means ‘between-taker; ‘egregious’ comes from ‘grex gregious’ - ‘standing out from the flock’; and so on.