Do you like to learn about the history and meaning of words? Then you’re in the right place. Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme for people who like to dig into words. Visit Kathy at Bermuda Onion to learn more.
My word this week won’t be new to you, but I bet it’s etymology will surprise you. I recently attended a workshop given by David Benzel called “To Push or Not to Push: What Your Child Needs to Succeed.” David founded the non-profit organization Growing Champions for Life which offers education to sports parents on how to foster a healthy relationship with their children.
David offered practical advice for how to parent without pressure, including:
- focus on effort and progress more than talent or results
- all competitive events end with either success or a lesson (note: not failure)
- motivation comes from inside, so we can’t motivate our children, but we can inspire them
All this was great, and the mom in me loved what he had to say (and feared that I have some characteristics of the “Tiger Parent”. Oh dear.)
But the word nerd in me perked up when he ended his presentation talking about a word we hear so much in sports: compete. Especially in our country, people use “battle language” when they talk about competition.
Beat, destroy, annihilate, kill.
But the word comes from a very different place.
compete: verb from Latin competere to seek together, from Latin com- + petere to come together, agree, to go to
David suggested that we should help our children see how to use competition to strive together to improve. This especially applies to situations that have an individual focus within a team setting, like swimming, track, or wrestling, but this approach can work anywhere, in sports, school, and among siblings.
Wow. To strive together. That sounds so much better than “attack”, doesn’t it?
Word Nerd Workout
Did you know the origin of the word “compete”? How can its etymology change the way you think and talk about competition with your kids/self/friends?
Thanks for getting nerdy with me!
Julia
I love the origin too ,but I have a question though .Is competition in sports the same as competition in school? Like competing for the first position or are learners and students suppose to work together ?
Thanks for commenting, Josia, and yes, I think this applies to situations besides sports. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, compete comes from Latin meaning “to strive together for something”. The application to athletics started in the mid 1800s. I think it is valuable to think of competing in any situation as working with the people around you, acknowledging and respecting their strengths, to motivate yourself to be a better person. I don’t necessarily think it’s a call for “group work”, but for learning to work together to improve. Hope that helps. 😉
Good Morning Julia,yes it did .Want to write an essay on competition ,so just putting ideas together .
Great! Good luck on the essay!
Thank you
Great article!
In greek there are two different words.
αγωνας means strive.
συν- means con-
αντι- means anti-
so, συναγωνισμος means striving together
and ανταγωνισμος means striving against, anti
Sadly, when speaking about economy, people use the last word..
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
I LOVE this. A friend and I talked about this today and I came to look it up. I am a word nerd and love that. WOW, we must change our minds in this direction if we are to “win”, together, the political war we are in right now, in America. And in the world.
First, we need to learn that “competing” to be in front of everyone, or above everyone, or get the gold alone takes us to a lonely place and that can not last. It is only in group and community that we are strong in a lasting way… like the birds who take turns pulling the group along for a short time each while remaining very close, supported by the family, each member taking his or her position, but rotating… for the duration of the trip. Rotation, not winning to the exclusion of the silver or bronze or the people who have less; together to excel.
Thanks for this. I am posting something about this on Facebook today.
What beautiful thoughts, and so necessary in this increasingly hostile atmosphere we live in. Thank you for sharing, and I’m glad you found my piece inspiring. Let’s keep doing what we can to build each other up. 🙂
Wow, great idea on how to compete using the original context! It reminds me of “discipline,” which has Latin roots referring to training and educating (rather than punishing).
I love this, Jennifer, and I didn’t know about it. Thanks for sharing. Someone else advised that I should look up the meaning for “coach” too. More blog posts brewing…
Jennifer’s point is good. Whenever I have spoken to my congregation regarding God’s dealings with his people, I have distinguished among discipline, chastening, and punishment by referring to the meaning of their root words. To discipline is to create a disciple – one who shares values and actions. It can involve both “positive” and “negative” reinforcement. Chastening aims for making people “chaste” or pure and faithful. Punishment is pun-itive. It intends no good for the one punished, only exacting the penalty due to the crime.
God never punishes His people for their punishment was accomplished in Christ. In all His dealings with them, whether pleasant or unpleasant, it is for their improvement in conforming them to the likeness of His Son and keeping them pure and faithful.
And when you think of it, that is how we should deal with our children. Though we must sometimes do unpleasant things to them, it is never to be the response of justice seeking payment or satisfaction. It must always be for their good in order to conform them to what is right and keep them that way.
Thanks for this tip, Jennifer. I used it in this week’s blog post.
This is fantastic! Love those tips and I’m so glad to learn the origin of the word – it hooks up wonderfully with my next post about our soccer season. Thank you so much!
I can’t wait to see your post- I love anything soccer!
I think ‘David’ has a very good philosophy about competition. I didn’t know the origin but I remember in sports events that “you were in it to win it” and if you didn’t win it, which I invariably didn’t, one had a sense of failure and disappointment. That extreme competitiveness was still there when my sons were at school but I think and I hope that has changed by now. My daughter didn’t feel so pressured and I don’t know if it was the school’s philosophy (different school ethos) or times had changed.
Julie, you have given me so much to think about – and talk about. Although our family also loves sports, I’ve always hated the battle language. Focusing on a more positive definition for “compete” is hopeful.
I had no idea about competes origin – boy have we come a long way from that.
Julia,
Very interesting “take” on compete, which denotes cooperation rather than fighting against the other. It’s the TEAM approach: Together Everyone Achieves More. 🙂
Thanks for the reminder of what TEAM should stand for!
Oh, wow, I LOVE this and will be sharing it with my kiddos! I come from a big sports family and plan to get my own young children involved in activities as well. There’s such stress in sports these days (I have a teenage baseball player and they put a lot of pressure on the kids), and this is a lovely thing to be reminded of 🙂
I was totally surprised by the meaning, but it’s a great conversation starter with my kids. It helps focus on the lessons that can be learned from competition, instead of just victory or defeat.