I’m something of an armchair etymologist. No, that’s not the guy who’s into bugs. Anyway. Today’s Dictionary.com Word of the Day isn’t actually a word but is instead a phrase. I’ve misused this particular term often enough that seeing the proper definition caught my eye, and upon further investigation I read the following:
deus ex machina \DAY-uhs-eks-MAH-kuh-nuh; -nah; -MAK-uh-nuh\, noun:
1. In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced by means of a crane to unravel and resolve the plot.
2. Any active agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an apparently insoluble difficulty.
The emphasis in Definition Number One is mine, and highlights what I found most amusing. “Deus ex machina” translates to “god from machine,” and it turns out that it’s a more literal meaning than I originally expected. This is the sort of stuff that puts a smile on my face. I love learning where things came from, especially when it includes colorful, fanciful details such as ancient wire-fu antics.
Of course, because I’m a weirdo, the first joke that popped into my head goes something like, “If it was an old-looking goddess, could you say it was a crone on a crane?”
(As an aside, does it creep anyone else out that my search for “Gil Grissom” on Google turned up at least one slashfic link on the first page of results? Ewww.)