Curious

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30983, 12 February 1966, Page 5

Curious

T AM invited by a corresx pondent to explain the use of "curious” in the phrase “the curious” which she quotes by way of example from Gerard's Herbal (1597) “They are used especially to deck the gardens of the curious.”

In that phrase it means what we should call the experts or connoisseurs. Our “curious” is from Latin “curiosus,” an adjective meaning “careful, painstaking, diligent,” and thence “eager in inquiry” and in a generally uncomplimentary way, “inquisitive.” This Latin adjective is formed on the noun “cura.” care, watchfulness, painstaking solicitude, attention. In French, whence we borrowed the adjective, it means “eager, careful, dainty, fond and inquisitive.” “Curious" has passed through several changes in English of which the most striking is the sense of “peculiar, strange.” ("Curiouser and curiouser” says Alice.) The transition here Is from the state of mind "curious.” “interested in the person concerned” to the thing itself which challenges attention, the curious or strange thing. The same transition appears very clearly in the noun "curiosity,” which from being an abstract noun for a state of mind, changes to the concrete noun, the curiosity for the thing itself which inspires that state of mind as in "The Old Curiosity Shop.” The “curious” man, eager for knowledge and interested in old things, goes to the Curiosity Shop out of curiosity. But these rather “curious” developments do not concern my correspondent's query directly, for in the phrase “the curious” the word still has much of its original Latin sense of “eager in inquiry, inquisitive.” The two most widely different meanings of “curious” may be illustrated by two quotations: “Here come the curious to feed in craving mind” (George Crabbe) and “My friends may spit upon my curious floor.” (George I Herbert.)