By Rocky Reichman 

            The word ‘month’ has a few definitions, though the most commonly known one, as stated in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, is: “each of the twelve named periods into which a year is divided." Webster’s Dictionary, unabridged, offers several phrases in which the word month is used. The first is a month of Sundays, which means, “A very long time.” Next is: “A month’s mind; a commemoration of a person’s memory one month after death.” The Lunar month and the Solar month are also phrases in which we use the word ‘month,’ although I will not define these since their defintion is well known.  According to Webster’s Dictionary, unabridged, the word ‘month’ comes from Middle English moneth. After checking the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, I discovered that Middle English moneth comes from “Old English monath, of Germanic origin.” Getting to our next word, ‘moon’ is defined by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as, “the natural satellite of the earth, visible (chiefly at night) by reflected light from the sun. The origin is from Old English mona.”

         Looking into the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary for more information, I found the word moon quoted in several places. William Shakespeare writes, “pray you no more of this; ’tis like the howling of wolves against the moon.” The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary also has the word ‘moon’ quoted in a work of John Milton (author of Paradise Lost,) “while overhead the moon sits.” In the New Statesman, it says, “Those politicians…promise the moon.” In USA Today, it says, “The class of 2000 won’t necessarily go to the moon, but they will do some sub-orbital flying.” Besides this, after looking into a book entitled Western Words, a Dictionary of the American West, by Ramon F. Adams, I found a phrase relating to the word moon: “one month, the Indian’s measurement of time.” From this, we see that the Indians, like the Jewish people, use the moon, not the sun, to measure time.

                 The TH theory: Moonth

When I was reading the book of Exodus, I noticed something incidentally, something marvelous. When looking at the Hebrew text, I saw the Hebrew word for ‘moons.’ When I double checked the English translation, I expected to find that this word meant moons (because that’s what it had meant in several other places.) However, to my astonishment it was translated into English as months. This immediately had me thinking: Why did the same Hebrew word mean moon and month? Is it possible the two words are somehow linked?

            I discovered they must be linked, since after all, a month is the cycle of one moon to another moon, moon to moon. The next thing I realized was the word month itself most probably comes from moon. However, they didn’t want to name it moonth, so, therefore, one moon to another moon was named month. The most prominent reason for this is probably as William Safire put it in his article on the prefix “Ir-” in the New York Times Magazine in January. William Safire explained that sometimes the reason a word was developed into being said a certain way was because it was easier to pronounce. So too here, by the word month, moon to moon probably became month instead of moonth because it was easier to pronounce. The definitions for the words month and moon (given above) strengthen this idea that these words are inherently linked.

            After I had contemplated this in my head though, something more extraordinary presented itself, which finally led to my theory of the th suffix. It is my theory that when the suffix th is present in a word, then that symbolizes from one thing to another, or from one thing to the next. To start with, let’s analyze the word month. That word we known means from something to something (i.e.from moon to moon). Now, let’s apply this to a few more words in the English language, in order to better support this theory. First, let’s take the word depth. What does it mean? The word depth means how deep something is; it is the measurement of one deepness to one deepness (hence, one thing to another thing). Also, we can apply this theory to the word width, which means how wide something is, from one wideness to another wideness, from one thing to another thing. This next word’s a stretch, although let’s see what we can make of it. It doesn’t seem possible that the word length can mean from one thing to next, although hold on there, because maybe it can. Length, according to Webster’s Dictionary, means: how long something is; the distance from end to end of a thing.”

Thusly, it is possible (though I admit, a stretch) that the word length can also be applied to this th theory (from one thing to another thing; in this case, from one length to another length, or how long something is). There are many other words with the suffix th that do not seem to fit into this theory, however that is because they do not measure anything (therefore, the reason the words month, depth, width and length fit into the th theory is because they are each a measure, a measure of one thing to the next thing.)

There are many words that will never be applicable to this theory, such as zenith and monolith, but there are those that, though it may be quite a stretch, can be applied to the th theory. The word ‘path,’ at first glance, does not seem at all applicable to the theory. However, let’s analyze it first. Let’s break the word down, into pa and the suffix th. We know that th (according to this theory) means a measure from one thing to the next, but what about the first part of this word, pa, what does that mean? If it isn’t a real word by itself, then how can it be applied to the th theory? The answer is simple, because pa, although inherently it itself is not a word, can mean something. Pa is short for papa, which means a father. How do we define a father? A father is the source of something, a place of creation or beginning (such as the creation or beginning of a child). Now, let’s define the word ‘path.' A ‘path’ is any course or track that someone moves on: it is what connects one place to another, one city or source of life to another. A path is a course that connects one place of creation to another place of creation (such as a city). If this is so, then that would mean that the word ‘path,’ since pa means father (which is the source of something) and th means from one thing to the next, combining them would mean that the word path would be defined as from one father to the next, or, from one source to the next. Thusly, while I am unsure as to whether this is correct, nevertheless the logic is not at all faulty. The next word that can be applied to this theory but be quite a stretch is ‘death.’ Unlike the word ‘path,’ there is much less proof for this word being applicable to the th theory, but there is some. To explain, we should compare the word ‘death’ to the word ‘dead.' ‘Dead’ is normally used as an adjective, while ‘death’ is a noun. This word is even more of a stretch than ‘path,’ for what I propose for this word is that while you can label something as ‘dead,’ ‘death’ is the measure of exactly how dead something is. Just like ‘width’ is the measure of how wide something is, so too ‘death’ is the measure of how dead something is. The final word I would like to throw forth that can be applied to this th theory (though it would be a great stretch to do so) is ‘youth.’ To explain this, let’s do what we did with the word death. Let’s compare the word ‘youth’ to the word ‘young.’ While ‘young’ is an adjective, ‘youth’ is a noun. Therefore, just like ‘width’ is the measure of how wide something is and ‘death’ is the measure of how dead something is, so too ‘youth’ is the measure of how young something or someone is. These last three words however are a stretch, so if you ever mention this theory to anyone, it’s alright to exclude them.

The main words that we can use to explain this theory are month, depth, width and length, since they are all words that mean the measure of one thing to another, or the measure of one thing to another.  Therefore, according to my th theory, the suffix th can occasionally mean a measure from one thing to the next.

Until next issue, have a good moonth!