Etymology, Bus And The Subtle Things In Life

It was some time ago that I learnt about etymology. Etymology is the study of the origin of words, and the way in which their meanings have changed. I found it pretty interesting. I looked up some origins of words.

I knew I had to look at the etymology of the one word that had me baffled for ages. The one word that has taken minutes of my life pondering on its existence, and after saying it a lot of times, losing meaning.

Bus.

The word just didn’t make sense to me. I was like “Why is a bus called a bus?”

This once-eternal doubt was resolved due to etymology. Bus was the second word that I searched for the etymology of, after the word etymology itself.

So apparently, the word “bus” is short for “omnibus”, which means “for everyone”. It was first used in the 1830s, its “everyone” implying that anyone could join the coach along its route.

Small things like this, we often overlook. At one point, I could’ve simply not cared.

“Why should I’ve bothered knowing about the meaning of a word?” I could’ve asked myself. The answer is my eternal curiosity. A satisfaction that I’ve learnt something that I’ve always aspired to learn. We should give importance to the subtle things in life that we fail to notice, like a little leaf on top of the car. If we do so, we can make life simpler and happier.