I’ll preface this post with a short introduction of a very special guest we have on this blog today! That’s right, you can read this post and enjoy it with confidence that it wasn’t written by me. Instead much more distinguished writer simply known as Athena’s Quill is taking over for this week. Yeah, I guess I’d use a pen name (heh) if I was a real writer invited to be on my blog too. Plausible deniability. Enjoy!

Before we begin — are you reading this at work?

Tsk tsk!

But this will actually be a work-related diversion–it’s about the meanings of the words-behind-the-words that we use for work. One thing’s for sure: our linguistic ancestors had the same attitudes we do toward this area of life, as you will see.

Let’s begin with the word “work” itself. It sounds short. It sounds guttural. It sounds like a German-ish word, in other words. If you know enough about the English language to have guessed it’s from the oldest form of English, Anglo-Saxon, you guessed right. However, in the original language it’s spelled “weorc.” Today the primary definition for work is that it is energy expended on a goal, or something specific to be accomplished. In Anglo-Saxon, “weorc” meant this too (and all the other things it does to us today, even including “pain, travail, grief”).

A “task” is a small unit of work to be accomplished. Work tasks can be very unpleasant sometimes, such as when you work in a pet store, as I did during my college years. The origin of this word is also unpleasant. Although it sounds like “task” could be another Anglo-Saxon/Old English derivative, it actually comes from Latin. The Latin word “taxa” meant “impose a tax on someone” to the Romans. In those days I’m sure it was a task to impose a tax on a boisterous populace.

A set of tasks performed every day makes up someone’s “job.” No one seems to know where this word came from, though its usage dates back to sometime in the 1500s. Perhaps tasks also made up jobs in those days too. Another interesting connection is that at one time you would use the word “job” as a verb, meaning “prod” or “stab.” In the beginning, maybe someone’s job was to…motivate people.

These days you may have several jobs during your “career.” From the Latin word for “carriage,” we use this word to refer to sustained and progressive employment. One imagines that originally the idea was that a person “drove” his career, although people these days are often passively allowing their careers to drive them (into disengagement and worse, alas).

Mark Twain’s words of advice apply to this sad state of things: “The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.” And this nicely introduces our last word here: “vocation.” Coming from the Latin, its root means “to call.” Hopefully the tasks and jobs you’ve had in your career are something that you felt called to do! If you’re absolutely engaged in your day-to-day mission, every day you work you will still feel like you’re free.

There you go–those are some words and roots for you today. Now you can get back to the tasks of your job and continue further your career. And now you know—that’s why they call it work.