For the September issue of the ESL EGG, the word was “egg”. This month, In a Word…looks at a common family of words from the Latin root com or con, which means with or together.

Common means ordinary, but it can also mean belonging equally to everyone in a group. You probably share common interests with your friends, or, in a similar expression, you and your friends have many interests in common. A common room is a place in a school or college where students share equally, relax or socialize.

Common sense is “good judgement”, something that everyone shares –- or should share. An idiom that means the same as this is horse sense. There is the House of Commons in Ottawa – but this goes back to the idea of “ordinary” – the house of Parliament (from the French “parler”, meaning “to talk”) represents ordinary people. In England, of course, the second house is the House of Lords, while in Canada, we have the Senate.

There are lots of useful words of vocabulary with the root com or con. Companion is from com, and pan meaning “bread”. A companion is someone with whom you share bread, or share meals. Company in a business sense originally meant companions, but the expressions we’re expecting company or we’re having company tonight goes back to the meaning of having “companions” visit and “breaking bread” with them.

Temp means “time”, and contemporary means “sharing the same time” or belonging to the same age. Compress, of course, means to press together. Convocation is a meeting – literally, a calling together (“voc” means “voice”). Convene means “to come together”. Something that is convenient saves trouble – it is something that is “well arranged” or close. We have the expression, convenience store, a store that is nearby so it is easy to get to and buy things. To confide in someone means you “share your thoughts with someone you trust”. Fid means “trust”, as in fidelity or its opposite, infidelity.

Com and con are not the only forms of this root. Sometimes the “m” or “n” is dropped, and the first letter of the next root word is doubled. For example, we do not “comrelate”, but we do correlate, the verb for connecting or relating things together. To be connected is to be tied (Latin, “nectere”) together. This can mean that your neck literally ties your head to your body! Another word, collaborate, means “to work together”, and collide means “to hit together”. Sometimes the “m”, “n” or other letter is dropped completely, and the result is words like co-pilot – “pilot together”, cooperate – “operate together”, or co-author – “to write together”.

Other good high level words in this family are coherent (to stick together), conform (to shape with) and consent (to feel, or to think together).

Concrete, means literally “to grow together”. We have the idiom “it’s not set in concrete”, meaning it can be changed. To convert someone means to make him or her believe as you do. Don’t preach to the converted means you needn’t try to persuade someone if he already agrees with you. If someone is trying to make you agree with them but you already do agree or already have the same opinion, you can say You’re preaching to the converted.

Last but not least, communication is what all of these words are used for: to allow us to share our thoughts and feelings “together with” others so we have ideas “in common”. Com, as you have seen, is the Latin root for an uncommon number of English words.

It’s interesting to find out about word origins, but more than just that, the more you know about a word the more you will remember it and use it!