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Topic: Mores

A question about the term social mores found us thinking about homophones—the social mores sounds the same as the fishy morays—and also about the linguistic habits that lead people to read mores as /moorz/.

But the mores—that's a plural noun—that names "the usually fixed morally binding customs of a particular group" comes from the plural of the Latin mos, meaning "custom." They've got nothing to do with fish and nothing to do with the more associated with addition.

There's more to the mores story than that, of course. Those accustomed to thinking about etymological connections might deduce that mos might have also led to the terms moral, morale, and morose. That's true of course, and it's also true that each of those terms predates mores by at least a century.

Mores has other senses, too, in addition to the one naming "the usually fixed, morally binding customs of a particular group." Mores can mean "moral attitudes"; and it can be synonymous with habits, or manners. And mores appears in two classic Latin phrasings: the instructive abeunt studia in mores—practices zealously pursued pass into habits—and the lament O tempora! O mores! Oh the times! Oh the manners!

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XD That would be really hard for me to do. I hate drawing attention to myself.