What’s the deal with the word embarrass? Discussing it with a friend of mine, it seemed perfectly clear how the meaning of the word breaks down. Decoding the prefix “em”, we get “to cause to be bare-assed”, which perfectly defines the meaning and spirit of the word! But then I started looking in the “official” meaning and history and was greatly vexed.
The first definition of “cause to feel self conscious or disconcerted” usually hits the nail on the head, but invariably there are three or four other meanings to the tune of “impede”, “hamper”, “complicate” and most troubling “cause financial difficulty”. Now I’m no Webster, but it seems clear that each of the secondary meanings simply describe conditions that would bring about conditions of the first meaning.
For example, if someone had caused my company to have financial difficulties, I (or the company as a whole) would most likely feel self-conscious or disconcerted (the first meaning of the word), and therefore embarrassed. This cause-and-effect form of defining words seems wrong to me. Should we also add “cause the mafia difficulty” as in “embarrass the family”? What about “cause someone involuntary public nudity”? Sure it causes embarrassment, but is it an actual definition of the word? Why is any meaning besides the first one even needed?
To add to the confusion, the history of the word doesn’t even seem to have anything to do with the current primary meaning and seems to focus on the secondary meanings. The origin is from the French “embarrasser” (to encumber, hamper), from the Spanish “embarazar”, from the Italian “imbarazzare”, from “imbarazzo” (obstacle, obstruction), from “imbarrare” (to block, bar), from the Latin “in” + “barra”.
So at what point in history did “embarrass” stop meaning “to thwart” and start meaning “to metaphorically drop someone’s pants”? Or does it still mean “to thwart” and 99% of the English-speaking world is simply ignorant of the fact?
It’s a matter of choosing the right dictionary. Looks like the one you used had the definitions listed in order of how common they currently are. The OED, though, lists them with historical information.
Thus you have:
To encumber, hamper, impede (movements, actions, persons moving or acting). First Cite: 1683. The "Having a debt"definition derives from this – the debt impedes the debtor.
a. To perplex, throw into doubt or difficulty. First Cite: 1672.
And finally
b. To make (a person) feel awkward or ashamed, esp. by one’s speech or actions; to cause (someone) embarrassment. First cite 1828 (and no other cites until 1897)
To render difficult or intricate; to complicate (a question, etc.). First Cite 1736.
Thus the most common current use of “embarrass” derives from the definition “being put into difficulty.” If you’re in a difficult situation, you could be embarrassed by it. Looks like this caught on in the late 19th century.
The similarity to “bare-ass” is coincidental. It’s quite clear the current definition is the most recent.
Webster’s 2nd Edition Unabridged Dictionary does the same thing, so for example the first definition given for starve is the original meaning, “to die of hunger or exposure to the elements, especially cold”.
My claim: The word “embarrassed” is neither etymologically nor conceptually connected to anything having to do with dropping one’s pants. It has never, and does not now, mean “to metaphorically drop someone’s pants.”
I am 100% sure I’m right about this, but I’l like to see this confirmed by somone. To make sure I’m not crazy.
I’m completely confused by what you’re saying here. The etymology cited above claims that embarrass comes from embarazar (and, of course, eventually from Latin) via French. I don’t see why that counts as a coincidence. Are you saying something about how they don’t mean exactly the same thing?
But the Spanish word for “pregnant” is not embarazar but embarazada, and I was informed that they are not the same word nor derived from the same root word.
I am prepared to be found wrong on that, but first let’s get on the same channel, shall we?
For what it’s worth, the Wikipedia article for “Embarazado” says the English word Embarrass is descended from the same Spanish word “Embarazar” as the present Spanish word “Embarazar” is.
But is that the “feeling self conscious” definition, the “thwarted” definition, or the “caused financial difficulty” definition?
Um, if you were in a public social situation and some punk pulled your pants down, wouldn’t the best word for describing what you were feeling be “embarrassed”?
And what about the modern expression “You dropped your pants!” (on screen in the film The Color of Money)? The phrase means that you embarrassed yourself by presenting yourself as a fool - quite literally that you em-bare-assed yourself.
1D-10T, you’re getting it backwards. All those “secondary” meanings are older; they are the reason that “embarrass,” today, means, more generally, what it does. Because it originally meant those more specific means of “embarrassment.”
Sure, but I’m not sure how that is supposed to imply that the word “embarrassed” is either etymologically or conceptually connected with pants-dropping.
The thread has done a good job of showing that there is no etymological connection.
If we’re allowings conceptual connections as loose as “Word A is conceptually connected to word B when word A can be involved in an inference together with word B” then I’m not sure what use this notion of a “conceptual connection” between words can be.
If you could somehow show that people generally think of “embarassment” together with an image of one’s ass being bared, and vice versa then you will have found what I think can be an interesting and useful conceptual connection. But my claim is that there’s no such conceptual connection. People don’t generally think of bared asses when they think of embarassment. (They probably think of embarassment when they think of asses being bared, but the interesting and useful kind of conceptual connection I’m referring to would result in the association going both ways, not just in this one direction.)
As above, to make an interesting or useful connection here, you’d have to show that people generally think, when saying “you dropped your pants,” something like this: "Dropped pants leads to bare asses, and “bare ass” sounds like the “barass” in “embarassment.” I am pretty sure people don’t generally think along these lines, but hey, maybe you know something I don’t.
I believe what you’ve done is to engage in a bit of “folk etymology.”