• The word work has several meanings.
  • It is not just about employment.
  • Its etymology is the subject of controversy.

The concept of work is at the heart of our lives and, in many ways, of our social project. However, its meaning is plural, often murky and sometimes unfairly reduced to the notion of employment. As for its etymology, it is the subject of lively debate between linguists and... political activists. Decryption.

A word that covers several realities

Ask anyone if they have worked today, they will answer yes or no depending on whether they have worked... a paid activity. In the collective imagination, working is therefore accomplishing a task for money (or, during childhood, studying for, later... accomplish a task for money).

However, if we refer to the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, work is synonymous with "work, application to a task, sustained effort to do something". Thus, sociologists speak more and more of "unpaid work": cleaning, cooking, shopping, parenting, voluntary associations, activism, contributions to Wikipedia ...

All of these tasks, whether out of obligation or out of concern for community involvement, require effort. Not to mention the inequalities between men and women, the latter spending 50% more time on household chores. Should politicians then stop talking about "labor value" and talk about "job value"? Perhaps. It is partly in the name of this unpaid work that some are calling for a universal income.

Have you switched to remote torture?

You must have heard it here and there: "work" comes from the Latin "tripalium", which designates an instrument of torture composed of three stakes. Proposed by the linguist Alain Rey, this explanation has caused a lot of ink to flow: work is a torture, therefore a source of suffering, therefore to be banned. This obviously raises several questions. Already, what does the etymology of a word really tell us about the nature of what it designates today? And, again, are we talking about work or employment?

Still, this explanation was quickly contested by Marie-France Delport, another linguist. For her, the word derives from the Latin "trans," which expresses the idea of a "journey that involves obstacles." Work would be, therefore, the journey from an intention to a realization, with its share of difficulties. These two theories are obviously the subject of linguistic clashes, but also political. Let us quickly note that several other explanations have been proposed, all of which involve the notion of effort. Will the experts ever agree? Perhaps, but getting to the bottom of all this will require... A lot of work.

  • French language
  • Etymology
  • Vocabulary
  • Dictionary
  • Society