In 1958 John F Kennedy addressed a graduating class at Smith College in Massachusetts. He demanded that they ask themselves if they wanted to be hammers or anvils. He challenged them to use the talents that society had helped develop in them.

In saying this Kennedy was using the word develop in a way that is much closer to its etymological roots than might be our use of development in talking about real estate or business development.

The word first turned up during Shakespeare’s lifetime 400 years ago as disvelop and meant “to reveal” something.

So the de in develop means to “take away” from velopment. Velopment meant “wrapping up” or “rolling up” something. So if you enveloped something by rolling it in a blanket, you developed it by unrolling it and revealing it.

JFK’s use of develop suggested the bringing out of talents that had lain hidden within the former students.

Real estate development certainly doesn’t reveal roads, houses and shopping malls that had previously been hidden in farmer’s fields and woodlots.

When I read that the word develop meant “to unroll” I instantly jumped to the conclusion that velop must be somehow related to the Latin volvere “to roll.” Develop came to English from Old French and you know the drill; was French must have been Latin.

But not necessarily this time evidently.

Here we have a battle of the titans as far as opinion goes on the roots of this word.

It definitely was floating around in the Latin-leftover-language that turned into French; but while a guy named Friedrich Diez was thinking along the lines that my assumptions jumped to, Walter Skeat thought it had instead evolved in a Germanic language and been picked up by those same folks who were turning Latin into French.

I’ve mentioned Skeat before as being a giant in the world of etymology, but I’ve not mentioned Diez.

He was German and lived through most of the 1800s. He wasn’t too much concerned with English dictionaries but he built an important base upon which English dictionaries could be developed. Diez was German and although Old English was built on Germanic roots, his interest was in French and the other Romance languages Spanish and Italian.

That may be why he has a sympathy for a Latin etymology for develop.

He brought to his studies a kind of scientific method that replaced the guesswork that went into earlier books on the development of these languages.

He is important to us because of the degree to which English evolved out of French since he is remembered as one of the founding fathers of Romance philology.

Philology literally means “love of talk” which is why we “word lovers” are logophiles.

Before I go I wanted to remind listeners about two things. First of all that Grammar Girl’s podcast has been very supportive of podictionary and she has a large and loyal audience so you might want to check her out.

Second, tomorrow as every Thursday the podictionary podcast is being carried over at the OUPblog.