Etymology follies

Gasoline Alley, 10/26/23

I don't usually get a chance to deploy my classics degree, but when I do, it's usually to make a joke about the etymology of some word in the daily comics on this blog, which if you think about it is probably a better use of it than trying to trick undergraduates into enjoying Vergil or whatever. Anyway, meretrix is Latin for "prostitute," and "meretricious" means, basically, "whorish," or, metaphorically, something that looks attractive but has no value, which is not something people really say anymore, what with changing attitudes around sex work and sex work's usefulness as a metaphor. It definitely does not mean and has never meant "loud," so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a joke about how this bear, despite his surprising ability to mimic human speech, does not have as full a command of English vocabulary as he believes, or if the Gasoline Alley brain trust simply decided to do a joke that was specifically about the meaning of the word "meretricious" but just assumed they knew the meaning of the word "meretricious" and didn't bother to double-check.

Dick Tracy, 10/26/23