Everything has a history. It's important to know it.

​I love words. They have a history. And sometimes to fully understand a word today we have to know where that word came from.

And the changes it endured.

For example, if I called you an awful human today, you probably wouldn't appreciate that. But if I had called you that when the word originated in the 13th century (no age jokes please), I would have been suggesting you were worthy of reverence.

I think you would have liked that.

The meanings of a lot of words change over time as they experience cultural and social pressures and other influences.

Most words we read and say today aren't always what they seem to be on the surface.

People are a lot like that you know.

We see people today, but it's really hard to truly know that person without knowing their origination and the pressures and changes they've endured over time to become who they are today.

We seem to diminish the importance of history the further removed we get from it. We do indeed suffer recency bias. But for some words, and people, history is really important to understand.

Without it we can come to believe what we see is what it is.

Without it we may come to believe something is awful, when if we knew the history, we might come to see that something as worthy of reverence.

It's always worth the time to be curious.

Is what I'm seeing today really what it is?