The Etymology of Prose
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Our very first #Etymology piece has been written by @A, or as we know him, HB. We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we did.
“Prose” was born in Latin, spent her childhood in French, adolescence in Old English, the greater portion of her adult life in our beloved Modern English language, and, recently, in Javascript and PHP, among other symbolic systems.
Prose is a direct descendant of Prosa, who was fathered by Prosus and named “Prosa” in feminine-form tribute to her wordfather. Prosus was known for his straightforwardness above all things. He had no toleration for overcomplicating matters, namely linguistic matters. Prosa shared that same sentiment as Prosus to some extent, but had an even greater appreciation for the natural poetic beauty in everyday affairs, especially verbal affairs.
Soon people started saying things such as, “Be prosa,” just as one might say, “Be blunt,” or, “Be direct.” It was not long before Prosa married Oratio, the master of speech. Prosa-Oratio remained in union well after Rome’s fall, migrating north.
Centuries passed, and in what was once Gaul, now Christendom’s France, the House of Prosa-Oratio gave birth to Prose, the master of stories. As Prose grew and evolved throughout the following years, she became associated with a) written and spoken language free from adherence to any strict metrical structure and z) nonfiction as opposed to nonnonfiction.
Sir Isaac Newton contributed to said reassociation, remarking, “The Greek Antiquities are full of Poetical Fictions, because the Greeks wrote nothing in Prose, before the Conquest of Asia by Cyrus the Persian. Then Pherecydes Scyrius and Cadmus Milesius introduced the writing in Prose.” Of course Newton did not discover any law of linguistic nature mandating that no matter how freeform, spontaneous, or unstructured a literary statement may be, it will always contain poetic elements, just as non-ionized elements will always contain electrons; the best prose contains the greatest poetic charge outputted by the smallest poetic effort. Prose remembered and cherished this truth of there being no absolute divide between “poetry” and “prose,” but a spectrum conjoining them with the most beautiful prose residing somewhere within it.
Centuries passed, and it seemed as if the world had utterly forgotten about Prose. That is, until Prose reinvented herself and moved into a new home - a digital palace in the realm known as “World Wide Web” - and proceeded to host a neverending celebration of creativity and words.
Prose does not plan on moving out of this new abode any epoch soon.
The address, as you may know, is theprose.com.
And of course, you are far more than welcome.