Sic Semper Tyrannis

Ki-Adi-Mundi

As you may or may not know, I like words. I like thinking about words and their meanings, origins and development over time. I guess that all started when I took a vocabulary class in college. I remember it was either that or grammar. And I know this will shock some of you and your preconceptions of English majors, but I don’t really like grammar. I think it’s important, but I get no enjoyment from it.

I meant to tell all of you this a few weeks ago, but I forgot or got busy or something. My co-worker Aaron was trying to figure out what character all of his friends would be if we were part of the Star Wars universe. I said I wanted to be the Jedi with the white goatee. I always liked his wise, mystical, yet stern look. Well, Aaron looked up his name. It’s Ki-Adi-Mundi. So there you go.




“Mundi…I’ve seen that before. I think that’s Latin for ‘world,’” I thought to myself while in the bathroom. (Apparently, I do some of my best thinking in there.) And then, another word occurred to me—mundane. “Maybe ‘mundane’ comes from that root. Mundane, everyday things can be ‘worldly’ things.”

Well, I went to m-w.com and guess what? I was right!

So, underneath that word, there’s a whole subtext that could possibly be going on—namely, a universe divided into at least two parts: “worldly” and “spiritual?” I can’t prove this last extension, but I’m going to be thinking about it. (By the way, wouldn’t a universe divided in two be a biverse?)

So, what Star Wars character would you like to be?

posted by Mike @ 4:30 PM