The Long Listed History Of The List
A Story Of Competition, Connection, And An Array Of Other Meanings
I was researching the etymology of the word list and, rather appropriately, I found one. By that, I mean a list — a list of list meanings. At first, they didn’t really seem to fit together. How could one little four letter word be wrapped up into so many different meanings.
But then, as often the case for Circa Navigate, an odd pattern and story started to emerge. From feudal combat to lusty wenches, from sinking ships to direct marketing campaigns — the history of the list is a tale worth telling. So sit back and enjoy the short ride. Hopefully it will provide you “pleasure and enjoyment”.
It Begins With A Knight’s Tale
He’s blond, he’s pissed, he’ll see you in the lists, Lichtenstein! Lichtenstein! — sing along
Well not the movie or even Chaucer’s historic offering, but the origins of the term “list” begin on the jousting fields. In fact, “The Lists” were the jousting fields. First in German from “band or border”, but soon enough in Old English and French, as well. This might seem an odd origin for something now associated with an array of words, names, or whatever but it falls more into the realm of “is often the case”. For new readers — this is running catch phrase at Circa Navigate for themes that seem to play out repeatedly through history.
A quick reference on the word array and we learn in had it own combat and military origins. Only, this time, it was moving from French into English.
Armies were arraying for battle. Knight’s were meeting in the lists. A tremendous amount of order was being coined in an otherwise chaotic time and in rather chaotic places. Everything, of course, was meeting in the Middle… meaning Middle English and the Middle Ages, in this case.
A High German Distraction Before We Move On
List also shares a slightly older history with the word Lust. With reference to “wanton and unruly”, it is a little extra touch of both color and etymology. This connection leads to words like listen which add in the additional meaning of “obey”.
So while one meaning speaks to borders and order around combat, a second brings in a sense of longing, listening, desire, and pleasure. These lists are a saucy sort… or maybe we could call them listy — if anyone used that phrase any longer.
Since We Are On A Roll…
One would be inclined to think that the knights in “the lists” were also on a list. In those days however, it was known as a roll. It would be a few centuries and plenty of violent French combat before the two terms would cross.
With Industry Comes Invention and Revolution
The list found its way to the business world a full century before the industrial revolution. By the early 1600s products were being “listed” for sale. This had more to do with dangling strips of paper initially, but soon included the ledger and list concepts we are more familiar with. Oddly, this seems to have lacked “order” as an official descriptor. It would take a revolution or three to evolve the list that final time.
In the late 1700’s, the American and French revolutions introduced the concept of a roll call. Roll call employed a list and implied an order. This was a perfect setup for “the list” to become a major component in the coming industrial revolution. For the next two centuries, the list quiet integrated itself into many of the aspects of business and industry where it is known today. Interestingly — the first real estate “listing” would wait until the 20th century. But it was indeed a quiet integration, as the term list was not nearly as popular as words like rolls and catalog until the late 1800s.
What suddenly popularized the list? — Mail Order
Mail order started in the 1860’s. The catalog had been around for centuries, but the end of the Civil War saw a much more reliable postal and parcel system emerge in the US. While this included catalog companies like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, it also included items like mail order brides.
In a fitting circle, lists were about lusts again. Whether frontier men seeking mates from the east coast or east coast women seeking luxuries from a newly burgeoning supply chain, lists were again about fulfilling desire — even if that old meaning was already being lost to history. Meanwhile, the term list was being used in more books, more media, and more business. It was finally commonplace.
With the dawn of the 20th century, the lists were growing. Mail order lists, direct marketing lists, and eventually lists of data. Early computers, the punch card types, were most often list processing tools. Even the array was soon reborn in the new field of computer programming. By 1958, an entire programming language had emerged for list processing — LISP. By the 80s, some computers were referred to strictly as LISP workstations or LISP machines.
The list was part of a new competition as a new industry of business machine makers began battling for market supremacy. Soon the computer revolution would dawn, but for a decade or two — the list truly had its time in the sun. Not a bad ride for our little four letter word.
Today, list processing remains important — though perhaps no longer so popular. Among the Data Trade — it is now most often branded as prospect mining or lead generation. There are lists of customers, addresses, phone numbers, and much more. Even the internet is just a list and directory system at its core. It may be distributed, but it is a list of IP addresses none the less.
And so we close this article. If you were looking for some grand meaning, you may be disappointed. If you are wondering how tied together these stories and meanings truly are? We can only say more so than you might have thought before. In the end, even this article was just a list of list related concepts from history, with connection and order. But then… isn’t that actually quite fitting! Thanks for reading!
