Hello,

Haggard Hawks (otherwise known as language author, Paul Anthony Jones) mentioned mediocre’s roots on twitter ages ago and I’m only getting to checking it out now. A mediocre effort on my behalf.

The meaning of mediocre is “of average quality”. Interestingly it suffers from being average. Technically that means it’s dead in the middle, neither good, nor bad. But in a modern world where superlatives reign and everything has to be absolutely amazing, average isn’t good enough. Describing something as mediocre nowadays means it’s of poor quality.

Mediocre joined the English language in the 1500s, meaning neither good nor bad. It came from médiocre in French and before than from Latin mediocris. This is where it gets interesting. The Latin word is formed from medius (middle). You might spot the link to medium, for example. But the second half of the word comes from ocris – a jagged mountain. It has cousin words in Greek and Welsh (ochr) and comes from a Proto Indo European root word – ak – sharp, point, or pierce.

So mediocre literally means to be halfway up a jagged mountain.

I love that etymology and yes, I’ve been guilty of stopping, to gather my breath, and inflicting it on my walking companion. I’m not sorry!

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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