Before your very eyes, I am building a post in three installments dealing with the roots and meaning of "orthodox". This is Part III - the fin de siècle, whatever that means.
The Blog In Review, parts 1 and 2: Dox refers to things that are acceptable. Ortho means straight or upright.
I can remember being a young lad and deliberately working through "orthodox" in my mind, breaking it down and testing meanings against other words. We used to sing "The Doxology" in church. It was a statement, of sorts, of things that we believed in (things that are "acceptable" from the IE root deks). I thought of orthodontists and orthopedics - doctors who made things straight (from the IE root eredh). I eventually arrived at the notion that orthodox must mean something like "straight beliefs". In retrospect, I wasn't far off.
I am somewhat amused that orthodox is either a misnomer or a contradiction in terms. There are as many "orthodox" beliefs as there are people who believe them. In terms of churches, the Orthodox flag is flown by the Greeks, Russians, Serbians, and many more - and since they all differ somewhat in their beliefs, it can only be observed that each group thinks their beliefs are straighter than the others. And so it goes.
That is my story of noodling around with words based on word roots. If you haven't read it, I hope you'll take the time to read the "Foreword" to this blog and get the big picture of what the blog is about. I've also added a very few resources on the right. Stop by these sites every once in a while and see if you don't find something that piques your interest - like how "pique" relates to "America's most popular condiment".
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