Hello,
Did you know that despite democracy coming from ancient Greece, the word ballot comes from Italy?
Ballot (pronunciation here) has a multitude of uses in modern English as both noun and verb but all are related to voting.
Early American ballot box with ballottas used by a social club called The Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia (source Wikipedia)
Ballot began life in Venice, probably with the Italian word pallotte which means “little ball” because they used small balls as counters in secret votes. The word gradually changed to ballotta and transferred to Middle French as ballotte and finally to English by the 1540s as ballot.
Before it even reached English the balls had been replaced in most cases by small slips of paper but balls were still used in certain contexts. One such context is where a club’s rules say that even one nay-vote is sufficient to defeat a proposal. A nay is indicated by a black ball and an aye is indicated by a white ball. Using a ballot box such as the one above (combined with a covering cloth) enabled all to vote and the result to be see instantly. This practice led to the idea of black-balling, typically to exclude a possible new member who didn’t fit the existing ethos of the club.
Curiosity led me to the website for the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia. They’re still going strong and if you’re over 40 and a long standing resident of the area you can apply to join. They still vote on memberships but they don’t mention the balloting method.
Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
p.s. I’ll be attending the V by Very Irish Blog Awards in Dublin this week as Wordfoolery made the finals. If you’re there too be sure to say hello. I’ll be the one in the Sherlock hat.
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