De Officio; or, An Anatomy of the Civil Service

The cant of Semitic speech metaphorically extends physiological words and gives them a whole slew of applications. For example, the Akkadian word rēšum, Hebrew ראש Arabic رأس all mean head; in addition, these are frequently used to mean things like 'top', 'beginning' - and thus, Jews celebrate the Head-of-the-Year in September - 'person', 'the principle amount of a loan upon which interest is paid', 'slave', &c.

The present article is about another such word: išdum (dual: išdān; plural: išdātum). This word is Akkadian and the body part to which it refers is the buttocks. It is metaphorically extended by the ancient Semitic speakers of Mesopotamia to mean 'base', 'foundation', and, my favourite, 'administration', which might perhaps best be rendered by our present English 'civil service'. We, of course, have an English parallel; we may refer to power as having it's 'seat' somewhere. After all, assuming you are sitting down, it is your bottom which is propping the rest of you up. [You physiscists will likely be displeased with this; however, chairs are inanimate and as such are less apt to influence human speech habits than animate things like, say 'people' (and their bottoms).]

A king's administration (a government's civil service) is undoubtedly the foundation upon which gubernatory power is consolidated; without the ability to excecute policies, any office can be invested with whatever powers you will without being in any way effective. So, while I affirm the necessity of the civil service and am grateful for the fact that here in Canada, we have a pretty good one (go to Italy if you don't believe me), I do hope that I may be permitted to civilly remind said servants that it would behoove them to occasionally remember that they are naught but the government's ass.