What's in a word?

By Ray Rayburn

Jim Sorensen blogged:

“But I digress…the Middle English carpenters, not at all related to the late Karen or current Richard, were noted for using “putty” to fix mistakes in their work and since the table saw had not yet been invented who can blame them?”

This reminded me of one of my favorite words Sincere.  According to what I learned as a youth the original meaning was taken from the words for “without wax”.  What I was taught was that early stone workers would sometimes try to glue back in chucks of stone that broke off when they should not have during the carving of the stone, using wax as a glue.  So a statue that was sincere did not use wax in an attempt to hide mistakes.

I note that Wikipedia says that this explanation of the origins of the word is now considered  controversial.  I don’t care.  I am sincere in my belief of the origin of the word, even if it was before I was born.  Of course my boys insist I am older than dirt, but what do they know?

Ray A. Rayburn