Okay, so this week’s word isn’t so much a simple word as the explanation of a name. And maybe I’m the only nerd in the world to get excited about realizing the reason for this one, but just in case . . .
Remember in Disney’s Cinderella, when the alert her that a new mouse has been caught, and she picks out some clothes and goes to free him from the trap? She says something like, “Now for a name. I know! Octavius. But for short, we’ll call you Gus.”
I watched Cinderella so often as a child that I had it memorized. This name never made sense to me but . . . well, whatever.
Then as a Freshman in high school, we were studying ancient history and got to the unit about Ancient Rome. When my teacher, Mr. Harvey, said, “Then there was Octavius, who was called Augustus when he became emperor,” I actually went, “Oh!”
The whole class looked at me, probably wondering what the silly smart girl was thinking now. Mr. Harvey was the indulgent sort, so he asked me what got me so excited. I explained, “In Cinderella! She names the mouse Octavius, but then calls him Gus. I always wondered how Gus was short for Octavius–but it’s not! It’s short for Augustus!”
My classmates all got quite a kick out of that, and Mr. Harvey expressed his appreciation for Disney’s joke that no kid would ever get–and said he was impressed I remembered that, LOL.
Is this earth-shattering? No. But if you’re like me, you like to find the explanation behind those little details that never made sense, and just in case you haven’t watched Cinderella since studying Roman history . . . 😉
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
To me it's almost like that little mouse was getting a promotion and that she could see his significance in the future. Fun tidbits! :O)