The Root of All Words: Congratulations!

We're fascinated by language on the Elephant Larry Blog, so I thought I'd chime in with an interesting word root. Specifically, the word "Congratulations."

Its a word we use almost every five minutes, but do we ever think of where it comes from? Join me, as we get to the ROOT OF ALL WORDS!!!

Actually, just one word, and yes, I was shouting that last part.

Congratulations has three distinct roots. Initially, the word was a full phrase:

"Conge rat ululation."

Conge: Formal or authoritative permission to depart.

Rat: Any of various long-tailed rodents resembling mice but larger, especially one of the genus Rattus.

Ululation: To howl, wail, or lament loudly.

So, let's put that together. Originally, the phrase meant, basically, "Rats, I'd like you to leave, or I'll start screaming."

So how did the phrase come to mean what it does today? Good question.

Thousands of days ago, when this phrase first came to being, rats didn't respond well to spoken language. But through training and evolution, rats listened to what humans were telling them with more and more frequency. It took a special kind of person to ACTUALLY get the rats to leave, though.

And so, over time, the phrase came to be transferred from the person who was GETTING the rats to leave, to the person who got them to leave. Basically changing the meaning to, "Hey, Screamy, thanks for getting rid of those rats!" And since everything is shortened over the course of history, so was the "Conge rat ululation," to become the word "Congratulations," and later, "Congrats!"

I hope you've learned a lot from this... I haven't, but that's because I already knew about it.