Be me 10 years old
I thought “adultery” meant acting like an adult.
I accidentally found the worst way to experiment with this new word in my vocabulary.
My mom mentioned that her boyfriend wouldn’t be spending the night.
In my mind I thought that means she’ll be going to bed early which is a responsible “adult” thing to do. “Adultery,” if you will.
So I responded to her something about adultery, can’t remember exactly what I said because it was 40 years ago but I did say the word "adultery "
Mom was dismayed but quickly read me & concluded I didn’t really know what that word meant.
I suspect “person of legal age” is the outlier to the word “adult”. See also the word adulterated — “to be made impure.” So adultery fits in that context.
The word husband comes from husbandry, which means the care and maintenance of livestock. Roll that one around in your head a bit. And the word bride originally meant restraint… typically in the word unbridled which means unrestrained. Meanwhile, a bride is someone who has traditionally shown restraint for close to 2 decades (not having sex).
Furthermore, girl used to just mean child and it didn’t mean a female one, you just called a group of children “girls” instead of “kids.” Makes you wonder, then, why most people would address them as “you guys”.
Funny how words change over time. No sarcasm here. Genuinely interesting.
Therefore “adult” probably means “impure.” Easy to believe because once you made it through the first 20 years of life you’re gonna have a lot of damage.