Orthodox Rocks - Part II

Before your very eyes, I am building a post in three installments dealing with the roots and meaning of "orthodox".  Here now is Part II.

Johnson County, Kansas is proud home to the first family of orthodonture - The Frys.  My youngest son (not pictured here) is only months away from flashing a dazzling smile thanks to Dr Jeremy (remember "doctor" from my last post?).  A few lazy teeth have been set on the straight and narrow.  Orthodontics, Orthepedics, Orthoepics* and the like all share this common IE root, eredh, which means high.  But clearly we were not going after "high teeth" when we went to the orthodontist.  That vampire look is really getting old.

Imagine a row of people; let's pretend they are new military recruits.  They're all the same height, all standing, but some are slouching over, some are leaning over on their buddy, some are standing upright.  The slouchers and leaners would clearly appear shorter than those standing upright.  In walks the drill sergeant and shouts "Ten Hut, Stand up straight you lousy maggots!"  (Drill sergeants are surly like that.)  Now, everyone is the same height - all "high", none shorter thanks to the drill sergeant's verbal orthodonture, so to speak.  That's what an orthodontist does, only without all the yelling insults and with more wire and rubber bands.  Ortho has morphed from meaning "high" to indicating that a thing is "straight or upright".

Another word related to ortho is arduous.  Imagine that mean drill sergeant ordering those maggots, I mean recruits, on a double-time "harch" up a high, steep mountainside.  I think there would be unanimous agreement, among the survivors, that such a exercise would be arduous.  And so it should be.

* Some years ago, the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee had to skip a word that none of the judges could confidently pronounce.  The word?  Orthoepy.  The meaning of the word?  Orthoepy is the correct (straight) pronunciation of words.  It's all true.