A WORD A DAY.

Southland Times, Issue 21257, 2 December 1930, Page 8

A WORD A DAY.

CARNIVAL. A carnival may be defined in a general way as an occasion of feasting and merrymaking; in a now less heard and quite limited sense it refers to the season of festival and revelry immediately preceding Lent. As the dispensing with meat, together with other self-denials, is regarded by some as a fitting celebration of the Lenten season, the derivation of the word is made clear, it being traced to the Latin carnem (accusative of caro), “flesh,” and levare, “to remove.” Our spelling of the word is bemoaned by many etymologists .who quite plausibly insist that it should rather be “carnaval,” “carnoval,” or “carneval.” In explanation of this they point out that the word was introduced into our language directly from the French carnaval ,and that the French had taken the word from the Italian carnovale. The next step back was the late Latin carnelevamen; this form, however, was subsequently shortened to carnevale, a change based on the popular misconception that the word was derived from the Italian came, “flesh,’ and vale, “farewell.” Car ni val is accented on the first syllable; sound first a as in arm, i as in it, second a as in account. "The carnival of Venice is everywhere known.”