Editor's Corner

AURORA

Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn, whose origins are thought to lie even further back in the ancient Indo-European cultures of Europe and western Asia. As the early-morning bringer of daily light, Aurora’s name later came to be attached to the famous dawn-like phenomenon of swirling colored arches of light that appear in the night sky at high and low latitudes.

CEREAL

Ceres was an early Roman goddess of agriculture, whose particular responsibility for the crops that provide us with food gave us the word cereal.

HECTOR

Hector is the gallant son of King Priam in Homer’s Iliad, who is typically portrayed as the epitome of the loyal elder son, ideal husband to his wife Andromache and son, and the lead soldier of Troy. Quite how such a heroic character’s name has come to be used as a verb meaning to harangue or intimidate is debatable.

Some sources suggest it is his bold encouragement of his fellow Trojan soldiers that is the missing link here, but others point to a more recent origin—namely, gangs of intimidating youths known as “Hectors” who roamed 17th-century London.

HYACINTH

Hyacinth is said to have been a beautiful young man who was struck on the head and killed while the god Apollo taught him how to throw a discus. (According to some versions of the tale, the discus was deliberately blown off course by the god of the west wind, Zephyrus, in a fit of jealousy.) The flower that now bears his name is said to have sprung from the ground where his blood touched the earth.

JOVIAL

Jove was a poetic byname for both the thunderbolt-wielding Roman god of the sky, Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus), and the planet now named after him. The astrological belief that the position of the planets on a person’s birth could influence their character led to the adjective derived from Jove, jovial, being used of someone who is fun-loving or good-natured.

The characteristic gloominess of those born under the planet named after Jupiter’s father, Saturn, meanwhile, is the origin of the adjective saturnine, meaning melancholic or morose.

MENTOR

As another word for a wise advisor or counsellor, mentor comes from the name of a character from the Greek myths of Odysseus and his son Telemachus. According to at least one version of his story, Mentor (who is sometimes said to have been the goddess Athena in disguise) is an old sage and friend of Odysseus whom Odysseus requests act as guardian and advisor to his son, Telemachus, while he is away fighting in the Trojan War. [KC – Athena in disguise? Those gods were always up to something!]

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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