It's the first day of school, so let in the shouting dolls

As you send your precious child back to school this week and peer into their weeping eyes, you'll see a tiny reflection of yourself. 

Someone noticed the same thing 2,000 years ago and called the reflection a doll — or a pupa in Latin. In English it became your eye's pupil. Think of it as your very own Canadian Eye Doll.  

That same sense of a doll was used to describe orphans who ended up under the care of the state as pupils. Later that expanded to include students taught by the state.

That same root gives us puppet and puppy, and of course pupa, a young insect between the larvae and adult stages.

As you watch swarms of children flow into the school doors, you might think a school of fish and a school of kids were the same thing, but you'd be a dunce. 

The fishy school comes from the old German word schole, meaning a troop or multitude. Our kids are following the paths of the ancient Greeks, who spent their leisure time attending philosophy lectures, or skhole. This school also gives us scholar and scholastic.

• How English became half French
• Here's what Queen Victoria has in common with a bold prostitute
• Why you should definitely take champagne camping with you

Our linguistic ancestors, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, grumbled when their kids would kele, or shout, a useful root word upon which we've built clamour, claim, council — and class. No teacher will be surprised to learn that a class is literally shouting children. 

Once they settle into their classrooms, the pupils will turn to the teachers to point things out. That's been their core job description for at least 1,500 years, when the Anglo-Saxons built on the ancient root word deig, which meant to show or point, to create teacher. The same root gives us digit, as in your fingers. 

In a castle far above the teachers sits the principal. And she's earned that respect: principal comes from the Latin word princeps, meaning the chief. The same word gave us prince and princess. 

The noble history of dunces

Now, I called you a dunce earlier, but I meant it as a compliment. You see, back in the Dark Ages, Europeans loved a very smart man called John Duns Scotus. How smart was he? Universities hired him to write their textbooks. His brilliant followers proudly stood at the front of the class as Dunsmen. 

You can see where this is going. 

In the 16th century, his ideas fell out of favour. People started to see Dunsmen not as making clever distinctions, but as splitting hairs. So they changed Dunsmen to dunces. 

But take comfort, dunces: in 1993 Pope John Paul II officially beatified Scotus, so technically we should refer to Blessed Dunces.

Now, let's meet that Roman god I promised you. The ancient Romans worshipped Janus as the god of transitions.

He had a face looking forward and a face looking backward. His temple had doors on both ends. When the doors were open, Rome was at war.

His domination of doors inspired English speakers to lend his name to the one school staffer who holds all the keys: the janitor. 

It's fitting, then that it falls to Janus to open the school doors to let in the shouting dolls we call our children. 

Happy schooling, everybody! 

Word for Word is the CBC's monthly etymology column. Got an idea for a topic? Tweet me. Sign up for Word for Word to have it delivered into your inbox.