TWO WORDS

If you can find a distinction embodied by two different words in a language, perhaps in a language other than your own, you have a robust history of use that differentiates the terms and develops the meaning of each.

Connotations, everyday uses, idioms, phrases, titles, dictionary definitions, and etymologies all accrue to a word. These become material to strengthen each term and the relation between the two words. Are they substitutable? To what extent, in what cases, with what effect?

Example: the Spanish words “vez” and “tiempo.” “Vez” is a turn, a time, a go, a chance, an occurrence, an event. “Otra vez” means again, “de vez en cuando” means sometimes, “a la vez” means at the same time. “Tiempo” is time, duration, period, era. “A tiempo” means on time, “buenos tiempos” means good times, “tiempo” is also used to talk about weather.

The English word time does not lend itself to the distinct aspects of temporality the two Spanish words show. There is a time of opportunity and a time of duration, called Kairos and Chronos in Greek. There is a singular event open to chance and there is the duration that can be treated as a length or number. Events can be repeated or triggered again, now and then, or can be simultaneous (perhaps effecting one another, but always without one preceding the other).