99. "The Defenestration of Prague"

You tell me that what started the great war between Protestants and Catholics in central Europe was "the defenestration of Prague." Somebody removed somebody's windows. Thirty years of slaughter over that?

No, no, no, nobody removed anybody's windows. They threw them through a window. Catholics came to a meeting-room in a Prague castle and Protestants tossed them out.

For that I think the word would be transfenestration, and that's what your historian would have used if it had happened as you say. I think the Catholics must have come up there and taken their windows off. De — remove; fenestra — window . There go the windows and you've got a lot of angry Protestants.

Wait, wait. I'm afraid you've got the prefix de wrong. It doesn't have to mean removal. De can mean away or off or down.

So the Catholics were thrown away from the windows, or off the windows, or down the windows?

Well, they were thrown away from the room, off the third floor, and down to the ground. Would you like to know where they landed?

Yes, but later. Right now I want to get straight what the parts of this unfamiliar word tell me about its meaning. I understand the prefix de by its use in many, many words I am familiar with — defrost, defrock, deflower, debone, decompress, de-emphasize, and many, many others, all indicating removal. I know there are other de- words (derail, degrade) that fit your meaning, but they are much fewer and you often have to twist the meaning to make them fit. Aren't you doing that here, having your Catholic flying away from and off of the window? It's the window that the word tells you you're doing something to, not the poor Catholic.

I don't see how I can deny that. I guess I was straining at a meaning. Yours is more natural — to speakers of English.

Why that qualification?

Because other languages are generally closer to Latin, where my meanings appear more naturally, as they do to English academics familiar with Latin. Ordinary speakers of English see so many words like de-ice and de-claw that their first thought is nearly always of a removal.

What good storyteller wants that here? You're going to lose your English reader if you emphasize the window. His eyes need to be on the body flying through it.

Well, all I can say is that it's too late. You're never going to see a chapter titled, "Transfenestration in Prague." English speakers will just have to live with what's been given them.

And the storyteller, will he be able to live with listeners whose eyes aren't following the body? I think I've heard that the Catholic landed in a pile of manure, safely. With a denouement like that it's a crime to have readers, even for an instant, thinking of windows coming out. Even if they land in manure.