mercy — kind and gentle treatment of someone who might not deserve it or of those who have suffered a misfortune; a blessing from the divine

merced — the Spanish cognate of the same meanings

Middle English took this word from French which had gotten the word from Latin’s merces which is “a price paid for something, wages, reward.”

Here’s what merriam-webster.com says about the word’s origin:

To the ancient Romans, the Latin word merces meant "price paid for something, wages, reward." The early Christians of Rome used the word in a slightly different way. For them it meant the spiritual reward one receives for doing a kindness in response to an unkindness. The word came into early French as mercit or merci with much the same meaning as was later passed on to our Modern English word mercy. But while mercy in English now has the meaning "kindness or pity shown to someone," the word merci in French has lost much of that meaning and is chiefly used today to mean "thank you."

In Spanish, as in French and Italian, variations of the word “misericordia” are the ones that you will generally see for “mercy” meaning “compassion” while the word “merced” (in Spanish) appears much more often in religious senses.

The Virgin Mary is sometimes referred to as María de las Mercedes, meaning “Mary of Mercies.” Thus, the name “Mercedes” is a popular name for females across the Spanish-speaking world, which is predominantly a Catholic one. It’s also popular in other Roman-based languages — it’s the name of Edmond Dantes’ love in “The Count of Monte Cristo,” my favorite novel. It’s a fitting name for her, too, if you happen to know the story of the book — if you don’t, then it’s high time you read it.

By translation, the name “Mercedes” simply means “Mercies.” The name Mercy exists in our English-speaking world, too.

If you don’t know the name Mercedes as a woman’s name, you certainly know it as a type of luxury car, and when you see one, you might be inclined to say, “Mercy Me!”

In reading Colombian literature, or simply older Spanish literature, you might come across the expression “su merced” from time to time, especially anytime that a priest or a lord is being addressed. It’s a term that means “your grace” and is used to show respect and reverence for the person to whom you are speaking. I haven’t been to Colombia, but according to my understanding, they still use this expression when addressing people.

It comes from “vuestra merced” which was used across the Spanish-speaking world to address royalty and those of high ranking. It meant “your grace,” too. Over time, that expression essentially got bunched together and became the well-known and well-used word “usted,” which means “you” in a formal, polite address.

In Spanish, there is the informal word for “you” which is “tú,” and there is the formal word for “you” which is “usted.” This differentiation was always something that my students struggled to understand because in English we simply say “you” no matter if we are addressing a friend or an elder or a “royal” person or even many different people at once. In Spanish, there are also two words for “you” when the “you” being addressed is plural — the informal “vosotros/vosotras,” which is used primarily in Spain, and the formal “ustedes,” which is used throughout Latin America no matter if you are being informal or formal.

Perhaps you can see why my students struggled to understand this cultural usage of words that simply translate to our one word of “you.”

Let’s take the sentence from the sticker in this photo: “You are important.”

Addressing my friend in an informal fashion, I would tell her: “Tú eres importante.”

Addressing my elder or someone to whom I would show respect or addressing someone that I do not know on a first-name basis, I would tell her: “Usted es importante.” (Side note: the word “usted” is often abbreviated and then looks like this — “Ud.”)

Addressing a group of (all male or mixed genders) younger people or friends in Spain, I would tell them: “Vosotros sois importantes.” If they were all females, I would tell them: “Vosotras sois importantes.”

Addressing a group of people I don’t know well in Spain or a group of people anywhere (for the most part) in Latin America, I would tell them: “Ustedes son importantes.” (Side note: “Uds.” is the abbreviation for “ustedes.)

Because of the word “merced” and its older combination with “vuestra,” a possessive pronoun meaning “your” in the informal plural sense (more grammatical confusion, I know), the Spanish language now has a VERY common and important word — USTED.

Even if you haven’t studied Spanish, there is a very good chance you’ve seen, heard, or even learned the question “Cόmo está usted?” This means “How are you?” If you know the person well, you would ask, “Cόmo estás?” instead, but for the sake of being courteous, the first way is the way to go. That way, you won’t unintentionally insult someone and then have to beg for “merced.”

Until next time. This is the free issue for July. Please upgrade to paid status to receive these more often than monthly. Paid subscribers have received posts about “placid,” “negotiate,” “gyrate,” “progenitor,” “manuscript,” and many others over the past months. Paid subscribers also have access to the full archive of almost 300 posts and they receive the audio version of each post, too.

Tammy Marshall

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