My brain is out of ideas, so for the heck of it, I went back to the old word of the day from dictionary.com. Kind of glad I did so. Today’s word? Prothalamion. Its meaning? A song or poem written to celebrate someone’s marriage. Now, there’s one I’ve never heard. Kind of different.
Before I get into the etymology, I’m reminded of a story about Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey. Yarrow is the Peter and Stookey the Paul from Peter, Paul and Mary. When Peter was about to be married, he asked “Paul” to write a song for him (Peter) and his bride. It ended up becoming one of Noel Paul Stookey’s best known songs. Its title is, simply, “The Wedding Song” (“There is Love”). Now how cool is that? One of your best friends, and co-performers, asks you to write a song for him for his wedding and as a wedding gift. I’ve always loved that story.
At any rate, here is a condensed etymology for the word Prothalamion, per dictionary.com:
“Prothalamion, ‘a song or poem written to celebrate a marriage,’ is modeled on epithalamion ‘a song of poem in honor of a bride or bridegroom.’ Epithalamion is the neutral singular of the Greek adjective epithalamios ‘bridal, nuptial.’ literally ‘at the thalamus,’ i.e. the inner chamber at the rear of a house, woman’s room, bedroom, storage room. ” This origin does not say when the word came into the English language.
So, for good or bad, there’s today’s word of the day.
And, as always, here’s wishing everyone peace on this, almost end of the work week, Thursday.
Schingle's Blog 