Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Word Guru daily email, is benignant. The adjective, in which the “g” is pronounced as a hard “g” (/bɪˈnɪg nənt/), means “kind, especially in feeling or disposition; showing kindness and goodwill.” Dictionary.com defines the word this way: “1. kind, especially to inferiors; gracious; 2. exerting a good influence; beneficial” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/benignant).

It first appeared in the language in “1739, from benign on model of its opposite, malignant. From 1790 as ‘exerting a good influence’” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=benignant). Malignant first appeared in English in the 1560s, according to etymonline, and entered the language directly from French, and from Latin. Malign as an adjective first showed up in English in the 14^th century, and as a verb in the 1500s. Benign entered English in the early 14^th century, again from French.

When I say that a word appeared in English from French, I am referring to the linguistic process known as borrowing. Richard Nordquist writes, “In linguistics, borrowing (also known as lexical borrowing) is the process by which a word from one language is adapted for use in another. The word that is borrowed is called a borrowing, a borrowed word, or a loanword” (https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-borrowing-language-1689176). There is, as we have seen in these words of the days, that there has been a lot of borrowing from French into English. The cause is the Norman Conquest and the subsequent dominance of England by French-speaking aristocrats.

But we have a different process going on here. Yes, benign and malign (in which the “g” is silent, as in sign) were borrowed in the 14^th century, and malignant was borrowed in the 16^th century, but at least according to etymonline, benignant was formed by the process of analogy: “the process of coining a new word based on an existing model word or a set of words” (https://www.proquest.com/openview/991a6b637a177b547a79edef4d67f077/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=48671). This process is often seen in language acquisition, especially by children. For instance, a child might say, “I bringed my friend with me” because they are unaware of the strong past tense of bring, so they form the past tense on the basis of the analogy to how English forms most past tenses. Sometimes words actually change because of this kind of word formation: for instance, the past tense of dive was dived from the 12^th to the 19^th century, but gradually a strong past tense, dove, became acceptable on the basis of analogy with drive/drove. Such language change is usually accidental, but in the case of benignant, the neologism (new word) may very well have been created intentionally. So somewhere (likely in an English university) someone said, “We have an adjective malignant, probably from malign, so we should have the opposite, benignant, based on benign.

On this day in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson presented his Fourteen Points in a joint address to Congress, fourteen things that the nations of the world (well, actually just Europe, mostly) needed to do to make the world safe and to preserve the peace moving beyond the first World War. We all learned in school how Wilson promoted the League of Nations as a way of preserving the peace but how the Republicans in the Senate refused to consent to the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. But Wilson’s plan had far more to it than just the League of Nations.

Today’s illustration is an image of the fourteen points, so I won’t list them here. But I find some of them pretty interesting.

The first point is that there should be no secret negotiations and secret deals. I fully endorse this idea. Governments should operate in sunlight as much as possible to reduce, as much as possible, corruption. This principle should apply to everything governments do, including what happens in our criminal justice system. For instance, plea deals should be made public before they are approved. I realize that crime victims must be informed, but these deals should be publicized.

The third point is an assertion that free trade should be the norm among nations. I fully support free trade. When nations trade freely with each other, they are less likely to declare open war against each other because the cost is higher (not that national leaders really care that much about the costs of war, which mostly fall on average citizens).

The sixth point is interesting given recent assertions by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. He claims that the West wants to invade and conquer Russia and has wanted to do that for a very long time. Point six asserts that the Western nations need to get out of Russia and let Russia determine its own future.

The tenth point is interesting from an historical perspective, given that, following WWI, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was pretty much disassembled. Austria and Hungary are now, of course, separate nations.

Point twelve is also interesting given the events of the last 30 or so years. One of the nationalities that is still under the control of the Turkish government is, of course, the Kurds. The Kurds are divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. There are also communities of Kurds in some other countries as well as Kurds who have emigrated from the Middle East entirely. It is clear that in each of the four nations the Kurds have not had “undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development.” Like the people of Poland, who had their nation restored to them after World War I (see point 13), and the people of Israel, who had their ancestral homeland restored to them, the Kurds deserve to have Kurdistan restored as a separate nation, but I do not expect that to happen anytime soon.

Point thirteen restores Poland to the Poles, and that finally happened in 1989. It sort of happened after WWI, but Hitler and Stalin agreed to share it during WWII, and after WWII, the Soviet Union ruled in Poland.

Finally, point fourteen is the one that led to the establishment of the League of Nations. Unfortunately, the United Nations, which is the current version of a “general association of nations,” has not been the blessing upon the planet that Wilson expected it to be. I won’t say that the UN is malignant, but it certainly has not been as benignant as it could be.

By the way, Wilson is often condemned by some political theorists as a statist, but some of his points seem almost libertarian. Maybe that is just a reflection of how radical the statists among us have become.

Today’s image, as I said above, is the Fourteen Points, courtesy of https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/peace/fourteen-points.