Paying the Piper (and not calling the tune)

Here in Canada, it's time to pay the taxman, as the deadline for filing our tax returns is April 30. And when you send off your cheque to the nice people at Revenue Canada, you are literally appeasing them, for the word “pay” derives ultimately (and surprisingly) from the Latin word pax, meaning “peace”. This is how it happened. A Latin verb derived from pax, pacare, meant “pacify”. Specifically it was applied, not to sticking a soother in a baby's mouth, or to pacifying warlike tribes, but to placating people to whom you owed money, the only way to do that being to give them the money! So pacare came to mean “give money to” – “pay”, in fact. As the Latin word evolved in Old French, the middle “c” was dropped, and, like most of our words having to do with money (including “money” itself), this one came into English after the Norman French conquered England.