Passwords and account security

The nineteenth entry is la domanda di sicurezza, and the middle word is one an English reader already owns in a harsher form. Domandare comes from Latin demandare, which is de- laid on top of mandare, and mandare is itself a compressed phrase: manum dare, to give into the hand. To mandare a thing was to put it in somebody’s keeping and let go of it. That is why the family is so large in English — « mandate », « command », « commend », « remand » and « countermand » all carry the same handing over, and « a mandatory rule » is one placed in your charge. Italian walked the verb down the gentler road: what you put into another person’s hands is first a thing entrusted, then a request, and at last simply a question, which is where la domanda has stayed. English took the road through Old French and kept the grip: « to demand » is to insist. So la domanda di sicurezza asks something and nothing more, while « a security demand » would be a threat. One root, two tempers.