Anthropology

El don in this list is the gift that obliges a return. On its own it is also the gift somebody is born with: tiene un don para los idiomas, a gift for languages, and los dones in church are the gifts of the Spirit. And then there is the other don, the one before a first name — don Manuel, doña Carmen — which English borrowed for a Mafia boss and an Oxford tutor and made strange in both. The two are not one word worn two ways: the gift is Latin <em>donum</em> and the title is <em>dominus</em>, lord. They arrived at the same three letters from different directions, which is why don Juan tiene un don is not a pun.