Temp-ting Root!

In Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a group of working men prepare to put on a play to entertain the guests at an aristocratic wedding. This play-within-a-play features a lion, a part assigned to a simple fellow named Snug. Worried about learning his lines, Snug asks the director “Have you the lion’s part written? If so, pray give it me, for I am slow to study” but he is reassured that he will be able to wing it: “You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.”

In Latin, tempus means “time.” The prefix ex means “out of.” To do something extemporaneously is to do it without taking time to prepare—to improvise.  Snug doesn’t need to learn any lines because roaring can be done on the fly. 

A number of English words are based on the Latin root temp. The tempo of a song is its rate of speed, the way it moves through time. The adjective temporal describes phenomena or events within the earthly realm governed by time, as opposed to the eternal or spiritual realm. You may have encountered the Latin motto tempus fugit, which means “time flies.” It is often used to put things into perspective, to suggest that everything we know is temporary, so we shouldn’t waste time on trivialities.

In the twenty-first century, few of our contemporaries (con means “with” so our contemporaries are those who are with us in this time) use the excellent word temporize, but it should be revived, as it is very useful for describing a certain kind of opportunist. To temporize is to act in accordance with the time and is used especially to describe someone who can adjust opinions and loyalties to take advantage of prevailing conditions.  A term that is closely related to temporizer is “time-server,” which came into use in the sixteenth century, meaning one who panders to whoever has power at the time.  The temporal realm is governed by politics, and contemporary politics offers us quite a few examples of temporizers!

Author: Carol J. Cook