Collaborate is a well known word. You can collaborate with your work project members and that is a good thing. You can collaborate with the enemy and that is not so good a thing. But that is not the “chameleon” element that captured my interest thanks to the good people at Merriam Webster’s “Word of the Day.”

The origin of the word “collaborate” comes from the Latin “com” meaning “with, together, or jointly,” teamed up with the verb laborare (“to labor”) to form the Late Latin word collaborare (“to labor together”) … ahhhh, excuse me….. wait a minute. What happened to the “m” in “com?” And that is the chameleon element.

The Latin prefix “com” has a habit of changing its appearance depending on what it’s next to. For example, if the word it precedes begins with “l”, com- becomes col-; if next to an “r”, become cor- as in corroborate.

Just an interesting tidbit from the world of words … which makes you wonder about “tidbit.” The primary mean of which is “a choice morsel of food” but can also “chameleon” its way to a choice or juicy tidbit of news.

The “bit” part comes the Old English bita (a morsel of food) which likely comes from the Middle Dutch bete or the Old Norse biti. But what about the “tid” part? That is less clear. The best guess of the etymologists is that is come from titmouse. Which is an interesting word since it is not a mouse at all, but a small bird the size of a chickadee. The “mouse” portion is likely a derived from a linguistic variation, mose, referring any of various small Eurasian songbirds. That variation goes back to the Old English māse, derived from the Germanic *maisōn- which has nothing to do with the modern French word for house.

I should probably stop there lest I be lost in the never ending origin of words.