{"id":6775,"date":"2024-05-12T02:01:12","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T02:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6775"},"modified":"2024-05-12T02:03:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T02:03:06","slug":"word-of-the-day-enamor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2024\/05\/12\/word-of-the-day-enamor\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Enamor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Word Guru, sort of, is enamor<\/em>. Enamor<\/em> is a transitive verb (one that takes a direct object) that means \u201cto fill or inflame with love (usually used in the passive and followed by of or sometimes with )\u201d or \u201cto charm or captivate (usually used in the passive and followed by of , with , or sometimes by )\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/enamor<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You probably know the difference between an active voice and a passive voice construction, but just in case, let me explain. English is what linguists call an S-V-O language. In other words, the normal word order in English is Subject-Verb-Object. Of course, this order applies only to transitive, active voice verbs because intransitive verbs do not take an object. So such an English sentence would look like \u201cMartella hit Antonio,\u201d where Martella is the subject, hit is the transitive, active voice verb, and Antonio is the direct object. But what if we are more interested in Antonio than we are in Martella. We can make Antonio the subject of the sentence, but making the direct object the subject means that we have to change the voice of the verb from active to passive. To make a passive voice construction, we have to use some form of the verb to be<\/em> before a part of speech called a past participle. In the case of regular verbs, the past participle will look just like the past tense, ending –d<\/em> or –ed<\/em>. In the case of irregular verbs, the past participle might look a little different, as in sing<\/em>, sang<\/em>, sung<\/em>, where sang<\/em> is the past tense and sung<\/em> is the past participle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implication of the definitions of enamor is that, while it is a transitive verb, we rarely talk about the person doing the enamoring except in a prepositional phrase designating agency. We usually put the person who is the object of the enamoring in the subject position and make it a passive voice verb: \u201cJasmine was enamored by (or with) Orestes.\u201d There are not a lot of English verbs that are used almost exclusively in the passive voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It entered the English language \u201cc. 1300, from Old French enamorer \u2018<\/em>to fall in love with; to inspire love\u2019 (12c., Modern French enamourer<\/em>), from en- \u2018<\/em>in, into\u2019 (see en-<\/strong><\/a>) + amor \u2018<\/em>love,\u2019 from amare \u2018<\/em>to love\u2019 (see Amy<\/strong><\/a>). Since earliest appearance in English, it has been used chiefly in the past participle (enamored<\/strong><\/a>) and with of <\/em>or with<\/em>\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/enamor#etymonline_v_8625<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to On This Day, on this date in 1726, \u201cThree men arrested during a February raid on Mother Clap’s molly-house (a coffee house catering to homosexuals) in London are executed by hanging at Tyburn, England\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/may\/9<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret \u201cMother\u201d Clap had a house in Field Lane, Holborn, Middlesex, which is today part of the West End of London. Between 1724 and 1726, her house served as a coffee house for homosexual men. Since one slang term for such men at the time was molly, which has a couple different possible origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molly is a diminutive of the proper name Moll, which was often used generically for a low-class woman or a prostitute. It may then have been extended to effeminate men or male homosexuals. The other possibility is that it derived from the Latin \u201cmollis \u2018<\/em>soft,\u2019 which also had been used classically in a specific pejorative sense in reference to men, \u2018soft, effeminate, unmanly, weak,\u2019 in Cicero, Livy, etc. A 1629 publication from the Catholic-Protestant theological disputes, \u2018Truth’s triumph ouer Trent,\u2019 written in English with swerves into Latin, at one point describes the denizens of Hell as fideles fornicarios, adulteros, molles<\/em>, and so forth, and molles <\/em>is translated parenthetically in the text as \u2018effeminate\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=molly<\/a>). The website continues, \u201cMolly House <\/em><\/strong>as a term for a brothel frequented by gay men is attested in a court case from 1726\u201d (ibid.). That court case is most likely the case of Mother Clap\u2019s coffee house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research on this story can be found in Mother Clap’s Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830<\/em> by Rictor Norton. The house was raided in 1726, and about 40 men were arrested. The wiki about Mother Clap says, \u201cIn February 1726, Margaret Clap’s molly house was raided by the police; around 40 of its occupants were arrested.[2]<\/a><\/sup> Primarily targeted by the Society for the Reformation of Manners<\/a>, the house had been under surveillance for two years\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Margaret_Clap<\/a>). But it wasn\u2019t anything like what you\u2019d think of based upon that sentence. There was no police in the early 18th<\/sup> century. Criminal apprehensions and prosecutions were handled by private parties. Yes, there were sheriffs, but they were more like administrators than what we think of as sheriffs today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homosexual relations between men was illegal in England in the 18th<\/sup> century and beyond. Oscar Wilde was sent to prison for sodomy in 1895, and Alan Turing\u2019s 1952 conviction for sodomy caused him to commit suicide. But Margaret Clap supported the men who supported her establishment. According to the wiki, which is based upon Norton\u2019s research, her coffee house was not a brothel like other molly houses. Clap had one man who lived in her house for two years, and for another man, she perjured herself in order to help him escape a charge of sodomy. Sadly, she was not able to help the three men who were executed for being enamored of other men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, in September of 2001, at the Royal National Theater in England, Mother Clap\u2019s Molly House<\/em> by Mark Ravenhill was first produced, a black comedy that takes place partly in the 18th<\/sup> century and partly in the 21st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a Molly House bar and restaurant in Manchester, England. I\u2019ve never been, but the menu looks inviting. Today\u2019s picture is from a review site (https:\/\/www.quandoo.co.uk\/place\/the-molly-house-28981\/menu<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Word Guru, sort of, is enamor. Enamor is a transitive verb (one that takes a direct object) that means \u201cto fill or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,695,395,694],"class_list":["post-6775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-enamor","tag-etymology","tag-molly-house","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6777,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions\/6777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}