To celebrate my favorite time of year, we’ll be focusing on some thematic words of interest over the next 5 Mondays of October, beginning with today’s pairing, macabre and carnival. I hope that you enjoy the ride.
Get it? Carnival? Enjoy the ride? Oh, forget it.
Additional Quickfacts: Did you know that the season we call Fall or Autumn was commonly known as Harvest before that? Yet the month has never really had an official name throughout most of recorded lingual history. ‘Tis true. We are now in the midst of a season of dynamic nomenclature.
An additional tidbit that will only be new to you if you haven’t yet read my article on the names of numerals (link no longer available) is this: the month of October was named for the number 8 (Octo), as it was the 8th month in the calendars of yesteryear.
Alright, let’s move on to the spooky stuff.
Macabre (muh-KAHB, muh-KAHB-ruh): adj. grim, gruesome, morbidly dark, in close proximity to death or injury.
“But above all else, I absolutely adore Poe. I feel very connected to his tortured soul and melancholy intelligence. There is much beauty to be found in the macabre.” -Solange Nicole
I like the description of macabre above. Nicole calls it “beautiful” (not for the first time). Her attitude reflects the peculiar human tendency to romanticize horror.
This romance, if not born of pure human nature, may date back to the medieval period— specifically to the Black Plague. People of the time were surrounded by death and the downtrodden majority felt unable to protect themselves from it. And so they turned to fantasy. According to the Atlas Obscura, “To confront the ever-present prospect of mortality,” Europeans created the allegory of Danse Macabre, or the Dance of Death, in which “skeletons escort[ed] living humans to their grave in a lively waltz.”
Goddamn, I hope I get to go out that way.
‘Tis human nature to laugh at our fears, so why not dance with them, too? After all, we are unique in our ability to find beauty in that which causes pain.
The word macabre originated in Old French. There are two potential sources, according to etymologists. Macabre may have begun as a surname, such as Michael Macabre or something of that nature. Perhaps there is a macabre Macabre story out there somewhere that inspired our ancestors to grace their language with the term. The other plausibility is that macabre is an extension of Latin Machabæorum, meaning “Dance of the Maccabees.” There it is again—dancing with death. The Dance of the Maccabees is a story recounting the martyrdom of the Maccabees, and it comes from Apocryphal texts.
Okay, now we know more about macabre. What should we know about Carnival?
Carnival (KAR-nih-vahl): n. A traveling or temporary amusement show, circus, or fair, often with rides and merrymaking.
Unless you’ve been hiding your head in the sand for the past 80-or-so years, you probably already know that carnivals, which are supposed to be fun and carefree, are often associated with the macabre. Evil clowns, demonic rides, happiness and thrill become terror and fear.
Interestingly, the origin of the word carnival at first seems pretty grim. No, it hasn’t always been defined the way we think of it today. Our definition, the one that I wrote above, appeared in the US sometime around 1926. If you follow the breadcrumbs back through time, you would find that in the 1540’s, carnival described a celebration and sacrifice prior to the beginning of Lent, and before that, you may discover that the word actually comes from carnelvare.
Carnelvare is an Old Pisan word, meaning “raising/removing flesh.” The Latin root caro translates to “flesh,”
And it is also the basis of carnivore, and the Spanish word carne (meaning meat or flesh).
A bit macabre, don’t you think?