“Light,” they said. Make it light. So, what is “light” in journalistic terms?

Bringing attention to otherwise dark spaces and places and spaces for one, which places and spaces might otherwise enjoy the lack of light shone upon them, the better to better carry out whatever it is they’re doing—if you’re conspiratorial minded.

But that’s another column. I’ll try to keep this “light” in relative terms, as in “brief,” “short,” and well, “light”. So, what about light?

Written in German (I learned this from a reader), English “light” becomes “licht,” which makes a lot of sense if you consider the fact that English is a Germanic language originally, though influenced by French through William the Conqueror. King William the Conqueror fought the ever-decisive “Battle of Hastings” in 1066, and the rest is English history, as they say. There was even a book written about it afterwards, called the Domesday Book. Rather boring as to plot most likely, given that it essentially amounts to a land plat and population census of Anglo-Saxon Britian as it then existed in the Eleventh Century. Useful, if you want to trace ancestors in the old country. Names change, too. Take “Moon.”

Now just as the moon reflects light from the sun in phases, so too the name “Moon” has undergone many different changes in terms of its English pronunciation and spelling.

Word on the internet is that “Moon” actually began as something like “De Mohun,” from “Moyon,” a region of France. The original De Moyon came over with William, while two distinct “Moons”—Roger and James, later colonized Boston and Pennsylvania, respectively.

Maybe someone reading this is a descendant. Tracing the descent back, meanwhiel, De Moyon became De Mohun, before trans-morphing into Moone (given time), and might also be written in modern English as Mann, Moen, Moon, and Moore, the last depending on the reading one makes of cursive in which “n” and “r” can appear rather similar—to an initiate, never mind novices who aren’t being taught it anymore. The same confusion holds true for Ancestry. com, for which computer program typing the name “Chester Moon” will in fact link you to people whose gravestone is in fact chiseled “MOORE” (we’ve checked), on account perhaps of old census records and/or computer error, never mind computer screens radiate light.

Some truths are still hard to come by, if at all. So what, in the end, is “light” defined by? That’s a complicated question, with a more complex answer than this space allows for. I was told to keep this column light—somewhat like the photo that I lightened in the column head—full disclosure.