History

@farcaster dev / dad / books, cooks, ski, code ~ there are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant

On the word “vandalized”:

When I think about the fact that the word "vandalized" I’d naturally assumed that it was from the word "Vandals," which is originally one of the Central European tribes (seen as barbarians alongside the goths, the Visigoths, illyrians) that took down the Western Roman Empire, culminating in the sack of Rome. The second one in 455 A.D. with King Generisc. This is what you’d think too —right?

Turns out this is sort of true. While often people think that the that is where the word "vandalized" comes from, it's actually from the French Revolution. When the mobs started to destroy and cause a lot of senseless destruction of churches and civilization and culture as part of the riots — a French bishop named Henri Gregoire took it upon himself to coin the term “vandalism” in a legislative context to denote that the senseless violence and sacking must be separated from the revolution itself. That's where it actually really came from in 1794. 

He even says so in his memoir:

“Je créai le mot pour tuer la chose” 

I created the word to kill the thing (to oppose and halt the destruction itself from itself)

creating and destroying; flying cars, jet engines, roc.camera, july.rocks /july /faust

Props to that bishop for actually caring about culture in the middle of all that chaos 😬