The Words of the Week - Feb. 28

‘L’état, c’est moi’

L’état, c’est moi, a French phrase attributed to Louis XIV began trending over the weekend following remarks made on social media by President Donald Trump.

Echoing words attributed to Napoleon, Trump said: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.” He may as well have said “L’état, c’est moi.”
— Peter Sheridan, The Daily Express (United Kingdom), 24 Feb. 2025

L’état, c’est moi translates to “the state, it is I,” or phrased another way “I myself am the nation.” The quote’s attribution to Louis XIV is apocryphal, that is, it is “of doubtful authenticity.” As for Trump’s quote, it is unlikely to have originated with Napoleon himself:

The quote posted by Trump nearly matches one that appeared in a 1970 movie about French emperor and military leader Napoleon Bonaparte …
— Betsy Klein et al., CNN, 16 Feb. 2025

‘Measles’

Measles has seen a rise in lookups in the midst of an outbreak of the highly contagious disease.

The death, of a school-age child, is the first measles death in the U.S. since 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. … In a Cabinet meeting Wednesday at the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said two deaths have been reported in the outbreak. Later on Wednesday, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the CDC, which is part of HHS, was aware of one death, adding “our thoughts are with the family.” … Nixon didn't respond to USA TODAY’s questions about whether Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has made false claims about the measles shot, misspoke describing the death.
— Eduardo Cuevas, USA Today, 26 Feb. 2025

Measles is an acute contagious disease that is caused by a morbillivirus (species Measles morbillivirus) and is marked especially by an eruption of distinct red circular spots. The word measles comes from the Middle English meseles, plural of mesel, which refers to both the disease itself and a spot characteristic of measles.

‘Dolphin’

Lookups for dolphin have been porpoising a bit since the news dropped about a pair of dolphins visiting New York City’s East River.

When New Yorkers were graced by the presence of two dolphins in the city’s East River earlier this month, marine experts said such a sighting was rare—but also a sign that this spring and summer season could be a good one for spotting more marine mammals, both great and small. On the morning of 14 February, a pair of common short-beaked dolphins was spotted alongside Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Experts tracking them observed that they lingered until 17 February, swimming up and down the fast-flowing channel that divides Manhattan from the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn and is lined with skyscrapers.
— Maya Yang, The Guardian (London, England), 24 Feb. 2025

The relevant sense of dolphin refers to any of various small marine toothed whales with the snout more or less elongated into a beak and the neck vertebrae partially fused. While not closely related, dolphins and porpoises share a physical resemblance that often leads to misidentification. Dolphins typically have cone-shaped teeth, curved dorsal fins, and elongated beaks with large mouths, while porpoises have flat, spade-shaped teeth, triangular dorsal fins, and shortened beaks with smaller mouths.

‘Fascism’

Lookups for fascism have remained high for months, and it was one of the most looked-up words again this week.

In a city that became a seedbed for fascism in the 1930s, [Vice President J.D.] Vance aligned the “new sheriff in town” with European hard- and far-right populist parities that have been on the rise in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Britain.
— Nick Bryant, The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, 24 Feb. 2025

While fascism is often used broadly to refer to any tendency toward (or exercise of) autocratic or dictatorial control, historically it refers to a political philosophy, movement, or regime with some key traits. In general, fascism is characterized by extreme nationalism; the enforcement of strict social, economic, and often racial hierarchies; a corporatist and imperialist structure; autocratic control of the government (as by a dictator); promotion of strict traditional gender roles and military values; and forcible suppression of opposition. Fascist movements throughout history have also been typified by their opposition to Marxism, democracy, and political and cultural liberalism.

‘Ultimatum’

The word ultimatum has been in the news a lot this week, and has seen a corresponding uptick in lookups.

A January U.S. Office of Personnel Management email to federal workers with the subject line “The Fork in the road” also mirrored Musk’s actions at X, who used the same subject line when giving Twitter employees a similar ultimatum. The emailed demands are “very specific to Elon Musk,” said University of Pittsburgh law professor J.S. Nelson, a co-author of “Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know.” “Musk has always been an outlier, in many ways,” she told USA TODAY. “I don’t think this is what you do in the private sector, traditionally.” Musk’s approach to corporate layoffs may not be so easily applied to federal agencies, which pushed back against the email’s demands.
— Bailey Schulz, USA Today, 25 Feb. 2025

Ultimatum refers to a final proposition, condition, or demand, and especially one whose rejection will end negotiations and cause a resort to force or other direction action. It traces back through New Latin to the Medieval Latin ultimatum, which is the neuter of ultimatus, meaning “final.”

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Chessom’

Chessom is an obsolete adjective once used to describe soil that is loose, friable (that is, easily crumbled), and free of stones. With the growing season fast approaching, the gardeners among us may be dreaming of chessom soil, whether or not they use that word, which they probably do not. Chessom comes from chess- (thought to perhaps be an alteration of cheese) and -som, an alteration of the suffix -some, meaning “characterized by a (specified) thing, quality, state, or action.” Whether or not you are possessed of a green thumb, may you find chessom soil easily.

The tender, chessom, and mellow Earth is the best …
— Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, (1670)