The verbs that matter most

A third of the way down sits capire, and behind it is a metaphor English makes every day without noticing. It goes back to Latin capere, to take hold of, to seize — the verb standing behind « capture », « captive », « capable » and « capacity », and behind « receive », « perceive » and « accept » once a prefix is bolted on. In later Latin it drifted from the hand towards the head, and the mental sense is the one that won in Italian: non capisco is I do not understand, hai capito? is have you got it. English walked the same road with words of its own rather than borrowing this one — « to grasp an argument », « to get it », « that is beyond my grasp » — so the figure is legible at sight even though the word is not. The older physical sense has not disappeared from Italian either; it survives in the family around the verb. La capienza of a stadium is how many people it holds, and capiente describes a bag that takes a lot. Holding and understanding are one idea on two branches.