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 January 10, 2011
 
Word of the Week--"syllabus"
Definition--an outline or brief statement of the main points of a text, lecture, or course of study.
Discussion--With the move to university life in the U.S., comes the introduction of the term syllabus. Some high-school teachers use the term, but for many it comes as a mystery the first day of university classes. "Why do I need a silly bus I wondered?" It soon became clear that the syllabus was essentially a roadmap to the semester for that class.
Etymology--The term syllabus appeared in 1656. It is derived from Late Latin, which was an alteration of the Latin sillybus, meaning a label for a book. The Latin was probably borrowed from the Greek sittuba, meaning a title slip. From the languages below, only Dutch shows similar roots. Most languages lack a specific equivalent.
Surprisingly, syllabus seems to have no relation to the roots of the similar sounding term, syllable.
Foreign Translations German:
Lehrschlüssel (m)
Dutch:
syllabus (de)
French:
programme (m)
Italian:
piano di studi
Spanish:
plan de estudios
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