Here’s another Word Nerd pair that turns up with alarming regularity; is it possible that some people don’t know they are two different words?
Anecdote: A short story of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature.
Antidote: Medication to counteract a poison.
Antidote first shows up in English around 1500; it came from the Middle French antidot, which comes directly from the Latin antidotum, which comes from the Greek antidoton, meaning “to give against,” from anti- “against” and didonai “to give.”
Anecdote is from the late 1600s, also by way of France, and also derived from Greek; it translates to “things unpublished” (referring especially to Procopius’ unpublished memoirs of Justinian and Theodora). Anékdotos comes from an- meaning “not” plus ék meaning “out” and dotos, “to give,” an-ek-dotos literally means “not given out.”
If you share an amusing antidote, you’re passing around medication.
Jim MacQuarrie
When he's not arming children for the zombie apocalypse or coaching the USC Trojan Archery team, Jim is writing about "all the stuff that would have gotten you a wedgie in 1976" at AtomicJunkShop.com and serving as the President of CAPS, the Comic Art Professional Society. His kids are all grown up, and his wife is patiently waiting for him to do likewise.
