I urge my students to be interested in language: where words came from, and the journey they took to mean what they currently do. When I learned, for example, that the word “daisy” comes from the Old English word “day’s eye,” referring to how the petals open at dawn and close at night, I was delighted. Here was proof that the English language can be governed by a beautiful logic. It was a happy reminder, too, that what I thought belonged to me did not. The words I use have been elsewhere, passing from mouth to mouth, me just a mouth in between.

A little later I learned that the word “squirrel” comes from Greek words meaning “shadow-tailed.” More delight. This was evoking in me, I realized, the same adolescent wonderment of discovering that my parents were not parents all their lives, that they at one point were young and unruly. It became clear that words are very much like people.

I share with my students that words are four things: they are a picture (an image), a feeling (a denotation as well as a connotation), a sound, and a history. Isn’t this true of people? We all have histories — that is, origin stories — and we certainly are made up of feelings. I became interested in words being made, leaving, and coming back changed, for better or worse. I made a list of words we know today as joyful that had dark, violent beginnings long ago: “enthrall” comes from words meaning “enslave”; “rapture” comes from “abduction”; and “astonish” comes from “thunderstruck.”

I tell my students that their job isn’t to memorize the dictionary. Instead, they should simply take an interest in language. After all, we use it nearly every waking minute of our lives (in thought, in conversation, to express every conceivable emotion). I tell them that I, like most writers, believe both words and people are constantly changing, and that both can be changed for the better.