Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https://www.wordscoach.com/dictionary), is surfeit. Pronounced / ˈsɜr fɪt /, it can be used as a noun or as a verb. As a noun, it means “excess; an excessive amount,” “excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking,” “an uncomfortably full or crapulous feeling due to excessive eating or drinking,” or “general disgust caused by excess or satiety” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/surfeit). [BTW, crapulous means “marked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking” or “sick from excessive indulgence in liquor” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crapulous); also, crapulous has no etymological relationship to the somewhat crude word crap, which comes from the Middle English crappe, which comes from Norman French. Maybe I’ll make that a word of the day in the future.]

As a transitive verb, it means “to bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drinkto bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drink” or “to supply with anything to excess or satiety; satiate” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/surfeit). As an intransitive verb, it means “to eat or drink to excess,” “to suffer from the effects of overindulgence in eating or drinking,” or “to indulge to excess in anything” (ibid.). I have to say that I have never heard or read the word surfeit used as an intransitive word, but I haven’t read everything.

It appears in the English language in the “early 14c., surfet, ‘excess quantity;’ late 14c., ‘immoderate behavior, unhealthy overindulgence,’ especially in food and drink, ‘gluttony’ (the usual later sense), from Old French sorfet ‘excess; arrogance’ (Modern French surfait). This is a noun use of the past participle of surfaire ‘overdo,’ from sur- ‘over’ (see sur- (1)) + faire ‘do,’ from Latin facere ‘to make, do’ (from PIE root *dhe- ‘to set, put’).
“Used by 1510s in reference to the feeling of fullness and oppression resulting from overindulgence; figuratively, ‘disgust caused by excess, satiety,’ 1640s” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=surfeit).

Merriam-Webster says, “There is an abundance—you could almost say a surfeit—of English words that come from the Latin verb facere, meaning ‘to do.’ The connection to facere is fairly obvious for words spelled with ‘fic,’ ‘fac,’ or ‘fec,’ such as sacrifice, fact, and infect. For words like stupefy (a modification of the Latin word stupefacere) and hacienda (originally, in Old Spanish and Latin, facienda) the facere relation is not so apparent. As for surfeit, a ‘c’ was dropped along the path that led from Latin through Anglo-French, where facere became faire (‘to do’) and sur- was added to make the verb surfaire, meaning ‘to overdo.’ It is the Anglo-French noun surfet (‘excess’), however, that Middle English borrowed, eventually settling on the spelling surfeit” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surfeit).

I generally look through the On This Day (https://www.onthisday.com/events/august/5, for instance) to find things to write about. I look for the unusual, the curious, the needing explanation. I try to make it different; you know, not always sports, not always history, not always politicians, not always entertainment. So for today’s post I was looking at the website, and what follows is what struck me. [BTW, I hate that approach for speeches: “I was thinking about what I would say to you today….” No. We don’t care about your process; tell us what you think we should know.]

On this date in 135, “Betar, the last outpost of Bar Kochba, falls to Rome” (ibid., and all the rest of the quotations will be coming from this website), and I’m assuming that “falls to” implies a military event. On this date in 642, “Battle of Maserfield: British Anglo-Saxon King Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia.” On this date in 910, “The last major Viking army to raid England, led by King Edward and Earl Æthelred, is defeated at the Battle of Tettenhall by the allied forces of Mercia and Wessex.” On this date in 1305, “Scottish resistance leader William Wallace is captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London for trial and execution.” OTD in 1399, “Battle of Vorskla: Tatars defeat Russians and Lithuanians.” OTD in 1435, “Battle of Ponza: King Alfonso V of Aragon is captured by the under Andrea Doria, capturing seven galleys.”

Do you see the pattern? Oh, there are a few, perhaps a very few, non-military events, like the crowning of a king or a natural disaster, but for the most part the first half or two-thirds is military battles, people (mostly men) killing other people in order to benefit this king or that emperor.

Then, on this date in 1921, “KDKA Pittsburgh presents the first radio broadcast of MLB as the Pirates beat the Phillies 8-0 with Harold Arlin as the first play-by-play broadcaster.” OTD in 1927, “Phillies outfielder Cy Williams hits for the cycle in just four at-bats in a 9-7 victory against the Pirates.” OTD in 1936, “American athlete Jesse Owens wins the 200 m in a world record time of 20.7 seconds, his third gold medal of the Berlin Olympics.” Also, “Italian athlete Ondina Valla runs a world record time of 11.6 seconds in the semifinals of the 80 m hurdles at the Berlin Olympics; wins the final the next day but can’t match the time.” Also, “Ken Carpenter (50.48 Olympic record) and Gordon Dunn achieve an American 1-2 finish in the men’s discus throw at the Berlin Olympics.” OTD in 1940, “St. Louis Browns pitcher John Whitehead no-hits the Detroit Tigers 4-0 in six innings (rain-shortened).” OTD in 1948, “Americans Sammy Lee and Bruce Harlan go 1-2 in the 10 m platform diving at the London Olympics.” Also, “Jamaica achieves a 1-2 finish in the men’s 400 m at the London Olympics, with Arthur Wint (46.2) defeating teammate Herb McKenley for the gold medal.” OTD in 1961, “Chicago Bears (NFL) beat Montreal Alouettes (CFL) 34-16 in a pre-season exhibition at Molson Stadium in Montreal.” OTD in 1969, “Pirates outfielder Willie Stargell smashes his first and longest home run ever hit out of Dodger Stadium; the incomparable shot off Alan Foster measures 506 feet.”

Oh, yes. There were plenty of battles and a lot of killing in the twentieth century. But battles aren’t virtually the only thing reported. Now, part of that is that there is more reporting of everyday events in the 20^th century—I get that. But isn’t it also possible that as the world has become richer (there was no 8-hours-per-day, 5-days-per-week work schedule in the Middle Ages), society has responded with more entertainment, particularly the entertainment of people competing athletically. Yes, the Olympics do go back to ancient Greece, but it was much more of an occasional thing. In fact, sports seem to dominate the world, even in places like Saudi Arabia. We have replaced a surfeit of violence with a cornucopia of athletic events.

Today’s image is of Jesse Owens: “Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany” (https://allthatsinteresting.com/jesse-owens-olympics).