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Metablogs

The pond is not the koi; the pond is not the water

So there’s this word, Occident, which means from the West as in the Americas or Europe. Contrast this with Orient, which means from the East. I had a vague understanding that one would easily orient oneself by the eastern, rising sun, so that’s where the capitalized word came from, but I was never sure why the west was Occident.

Well, the crazy soup that is the English language actually has a lot of logic to it. In this case, Occident and accident sounding so much alike is not a coincidence. Both come from the Latin cadere meaning to fall. An accident, surely, is related to falling. So are cadence, cascade, and cadaver. And where does the sun fall? To the west. Thus Occident.

I dunno. Sometimes I glimpse the simplicity and elegance in all the chaos. It’s the closest I get to the divine. I also get a chuckle that finding the origin of an obscure word can send me into a Zen state.