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December 2, 2023
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| Word of the
Week--"syllabus"
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Definition--an outline or brief
statement of the main points
of a text, lecture, or course of study.
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Discussion--With the move to
university life in the U.S.,
comes the introduction of the term syllabus. Some high-school
teachers use the term, but for
many it comes as a mystery the first day of university classes. "Why do I
need a silly bus I wondered?"
It soon became clear that the syllabus was essentially a roadmap to the
semester for that class.
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| Etymology--The term
syllabus appeared in 1656. It is
derived from Late Latin, which was an alteration of the Latin
sillybus, meaning a label for a
book. The Latin was probably borrowed from the Greek sittuba,
meaning a title slip.
From the languages below, only Dutch shows similar roots. Most languages
lack a specific equivalent.
Surprisingly, syllabus seems to have no relation to the roots of
the similar sounding term,
syllable.
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Foreign
Translations
| German: |
Lehrschl�ssel (m) |
| Dutch: |
syllabus (de) |
| French: |
programme (m) |
| Italian: |
piano di studi |
| Spanish: |
plan de estudios |
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Jane Ellis
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