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Teresa Fannin
06/19/201210/27/2016

speaking of words…

it seems my life is a round robin of administration, writing, solitaire, cooking, cleaning, eating, TV, reading, although certainly not in that order and maybe even not that consistently done. The maintenance stuff, eating, cooking, cleaning,  is done with little or no thought, well, maybe a little thought to get through it. The thought is not always connected to the activity. Power washing the front and backyard walks was a good time to mind-ramble as I stood, waving the wand back and forth, cleaning the dirt off the concrete. But maintenance activities are different from administration, you have to think to administrate.

Administration from the original latin  administrate meaning [according to the University of Notre Dame Latin Language site] giving of help. Seriously? How many of us think of administration as giving of help. Maybe when we use it as a verb, as to administer which comes from the late Middle English: via Old French from Latin administrare, from ad- ‘to’ + ministrare give help or service.

Administration has become a word of burden, onus, mind numbing activity. Negative. Less to do with helping and more to do with the plethora of paperwork and red-tape and regulation, policies and procedures. Okay, self confession, I love policies and procedures. I think there is something hard-wired into some brains and not in others. Bayley and I seem to live with regulation tattooed on our spines. Meghan, I would think, not so much. Tom, hardly at all.

And, it’s sad that administrate is seen in a negative way, sometimes derogatory way. Think of other words that are thought of as negative;  bureaucracy, politics, liberal, conservative, bully. Bureaucracy was simply a system of government where the officials made the decisions. Politic at one time was being judicious under certain circumstances.  Liberal could mean used in generous amounts or broadly understood. Conservative was able to conserve, holding traditional values. And bully, at one time a term of endearment, or approval, i.e., bully for him.

I suppose it is a part of language to evolve. Like Gay now being ascribed to a sexual lifestyle when it used to be a term for ‘carefree, lighthearted, showy, bright. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee.  Sometimes I think it’s sad that some words have been turned against themselves.

Regardless, it is time for administration, no not a burden, but a fact.

 

Musings from a reader first, lover of dark chocolate and Irish whiskey, tennis player, writer of mysteries, science fiction, and historical non-fiction.

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