Origins of a Corps(e)-man

A Corpsman is also referred to as a field medic, the origin of the word ‘corp’ comes from French and earlier Latin for Corpus or Corpse. A Corpsman is essentially a Corpse-man, a person who deals with corpses. However, that’s not very PR friendly when it comes to saving lives out in the field. The Term Corpsman, means a man from a corporation, a corporate man, but there is some truth to being a corpse-man.

Technically speaking, the etymology of Corpse does not mean specifically dead body, just body. However, our contemporary use of the word implies dead. We often don’t refer to our living bodies as corpses, even if it’s technically a corporeal form.

Corpses are (nowadays) often used to refer to specifically a human body that is dead or deceased. A Cadaver is used to describe a body (human or otherwise) meant for science or dissection. A Carcass is usually used for non-human dead entities.

The Latin ‘Corpus’, is often seen and used, in fact corporation comes from the same prefix root. A corporeal entity or being is just a being with a body in physical time space. To incorporate something, is to give it a corporeal form, to give it a corpse or corpus, a body. Incorporation = embody.

Sometimes people refer to written works as a corpus, a ‘body’ of physically written texts. Sometimes these are called a charter or constitution, that constitutes the standing (or stitute) of a being or thing, like a nation or company or whatever spirit.

If you think about it, ideas are like spirits that float without discrete crystalized form, and when we write down these ideas, we give it a vessel or body of words, signs and sigils, to inhabit. Imparting future readers and such.

But that’s if you start going into the esoteric realm and all that jazz.

Epilogue

I saw a pun on ‘corpsman’ being a corpse-man, and thought about the etymology for a few seconds before realizing that the pun is actually touching on something true. It’s funny how some jokes to connect dots can actually be more than a superficial jest and reveal the truth behind it.

Essentially the word corpus turned into both corpse and corporation and then the threads of meaning met latter down the road in corpsman.

From my experience, the universe likes puns.

Words Mean Things