Discerning “secret” meanings in an excerpt of “Storm Warnings”
by Adrienne Rich
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm.
The word <undiscerned> jumped out to Grade 6 teacher Karen Tiegel who was
presenting this poem to her students. It’s a great use of this word — and well
worth exploring.
Etymology of <undiscerned>
From Etymonline:
discern (v.)
late 14c., from Old French discerner (13c.) "distinguish (between), separate" (by sifting), and
directly from Latin discernere "to separate, set apart, divide, distribute; distinguish, perceive,"
from dis- "off, away" (see dis-) + cernere "distinguish, separate, sift”
So the root of our word is the Latin ‘cern(ere)’ for “distinguish, separate, sift”.
Morphology of <undiscerned>:
un + dis + cern + ed —> undiscerned
A matrix build from words assembled from the Word Searcher with the <cern>
letter sequence. All are confirmed to share the Latin root ‘cern(ere)’.
discerning
concernedly
discernible
discernibly
discernment
unconcerned
indiscernible
unconcernedly
concern
discern
concerns
discerns
concerned
discerned
unconcern
concerning
Back to the poem!
“…time has traveled by secret currents of the undiscerned” .
So the “undiscerned” is something that is not distinguishable — something that
we can not separate or sift out from its surroundings.
It’s interesting to juxtapose that meaning with the word <secret>. We can think of
something that is not “discernible” as something that is camouflaged — or kept
secret.
Let’s see if there is a real relationship between <discern> and <secret>…
www.wordworkskingston.com
Etymology of <secret>
When I searcher the root “cernere” in Etymonline, one of the words that came up
was <secret>
secret (n.)
late 14c., from Latin secretus "set apart, withdrawn; hidden, concealed, private," past
participle of secernere "to set apart, part, divide; exclude," from se- "without, apart,"
properly "on one's own" (see se-) + cernere "separate" (see crisis).
The word <secret> is from the same root! So it’s in the same etymological family.
When I look at the underlying root I find this:
From the 2nd & 4th part of the Latin
verb <cern(ere)> and <cret(us)> we
see that <cern> has a twin base! Two
forms of the same base that derive
from different parts of the same root.
I can make matrix (left) with the <cret> to represent words like <secret> and
<secretary>, but there seems to be a different base <crete> as well. That base
comes from the same root, and that builds words for the matrix on the right!
Beware! You may wonder about the word <concrete>, but that is from the Latin
‘cresc(ere)’ "to grow” so it does not belong in this matrix for <crete>!
My own hypothesis is that we have a twin base <cern> / <crete>, but I need to
investigate what the lack of a final <e> in the base <cret> has to teach me that I
don’t yet understand! The fact that Etymonline tells me that <secrete> is a
backformation of <secretion> has my attention…
My favorite thing about encountering this question about <cret> and <crete> is
that it is one I was not able to perceive in my first year of working with Real
Spelling back in 2002 when my Grade 4 student investigated whether the words
<secretary> and <secret> were related. We learned so much from the Old
Grouch in that investigation — and now the question has returned to offer more!
www.wordworkskingston.com
Relatives of <discern>:
Sifting out morphological and etymological relatives etymological
crime
cranny
decree
L. cern(ere), cret(us)
“distinguish, separate, sift”
Each base element <cern>, <crete> and <cret> can be used to construct a matrix to show its
“immediate” morphological family.
Since all of these base elements are derived from the Latin root cern(ere), cret(us), each of those
morphological families are part of the same “extended” etymological family. This is represented by
placing the matrices within the same circle which is marked with the etymology.
In addition, searching the root cernere in Etymonline brought up the words <crime>, <cranny> and
<decree> among others. None of those words can be analyzed to have one of the base elements
of our matrices, so they are from different morphological families. They do still belong in the circle,
however, since they derive from the same root.
www.wordworkskingston.com