MEET THE SPIRES

Hi Everyone,

It’s word family time again! I love word families, don’t you? The interesting ways they’re related, and the way they differ. Just like a real family. You see resemblances in the eyes and noses, but differences in build, heels, and calves (to take a few instances).

So here we are going to meet the Spire family:

Inspire

Expire

Aspire

Inspire comes to us from Latin, travels through French, and then pops up in the English language. But all along the way, it maintained a very interested meaning at its core.

In- into

Spirare – breathe

So you’re breathing into something, but not just any ordinary breathing. When we are inspired or we have an inspiration, it is usually an idea that has come to us from we-know-not-where. And depending on our religious leanings, we may attribute the inspiration to ourselves, our mind, our higher self or spirit, God or the Universe. The word “inspire” originally referred to divine or supernatural beings, so we are not too far off from that meaning when we use this word.

How often have we said something like: I don’t know where the idea came from. It just came to me! Out of nowhere, as it were…

Expire we can already see is quite the opposite of inspire, at least at the root. Ex- is out, as in exit, extraneous, extraordinary, etc. And as we all know, if a person has expired, the breath has gone out of them and they are officially considered defunct. Current usage revolves more around expired food items (remember expired library books?). In a way, the life has gone out of all of them (except for expired food which has new life entering in the form of bacteria, but I digress).

Aspire also comes to us from the same Latin roots, and was originally ad- to and spirare – breathe. It’s a bit more complicated than “to breathe”, though. When we aspire to something, we wish to attain it. You might aspire to be a great ballerina or chef or surgeon. It is a goal that you are striving for – something rather high. Without being too judgemental, you wouldn’t aspire to manual labour or a job that pays a pittance. You might resign yourself to it, not aspire to it.

And what does breathing have to do with aspirations, you may well ask? My own little idea is that it requires effort or energy on your part. Effort and energy require more breathing, wouldn’t you say?

So this week see what inspires you, what has expired in your fridge, and what you aspire to.

PerfectlyWriteKids.com – hopefully, some words will never expire. They’ll never be called dated or archaic, or God forbid – obsolete.