Roots
Vanishing words
Deepti

In an age where the word ‘interesting’ works as an antonym for ‘traditional’, professions have taken on enigmatic names. Just think of a person who works as a market maker or one who is a porcinologist or the person who is a tax-therapist. To clarify matters, a market maker is the person whose business is buying and selling shares, securities and bonds at a profit. A porcinologist specialises in the study of pigs. And, the tax-therapist advises clients on filling up income tax forms.

One wonders whether these professions will live on or will peter away like those that figure here. The vanishing words for various professions pose another instance of language showcasing the mortality of man.

Once upon a time, a chapman was a peddler or a merchant. The word comes from the Old English ceapman. Ceap (trade, bargain) came from the Latin caupo. There was a separate term for a baker who was a woman: baxter. This word originates from the Old English baecestre, feminine of baecere. It comes from bacan or, ‘to bake’. Other names for bakers have been backster, backmann, becker, furner or ‘one in charge of an oven’ and pistor or ‘one who pounded the grain’.

A dealer in textiles, especially one who dealt in silk and other fine materials was called ‘mercer’. The word comes from the Old French mercier or trader formed from the Latin merx or goods. Words such as market, merchant, commerce and mercantile share the same origin. There is another ‘mercer’ that is eponymous, giving the word ‘mercerize’, named after the calico printer John Mercer who first mercerized or treated cotton thread fabric with caustic soda to enhance its strength and lustre and to increase its affinity for dyes. A sutler was a merchant who followed an army to sell provisions to the soldiers. The word comes from the Dutch word soeteler, derived from soetelen or ‘to do menial work’.

In the past, a lorimer was a maker of bits, spurs and other small metal accessories for horses. Lorimer originates from the Old French loremier, derived from the Latin lorum or strap.