It says a lot about our tendency to procrastinate that the word presently in the late 14th century meant ‘immediately, in the present time’, but by the 1560s it had relaxed into ‘soon’. In fact, soon also used to mean ‘at once’ and eventually came to mean ‘within a short time’. Anon is one of those words you hear in Shakespeare plays, and only see in crosswords, clued as ‘shortly’. But this is another example of putting things off – it originally meant ‘at once’. I wonder how long it will be before immediately starts to mean ‘in a little while’?

Procrastination comes from the Latin ‘put off until tomorrow’ from pro ‘forward’ + crastinus ‘belonging to tomorrow’. So now we know that putting things off until tomorrow is not a new bad habit. People have struggled with tardiness since back in 800 BC when the Greek poet Hesiod warned against it.

Too much haste is a bad thing too, apparently. Haste comes from the Frankish word haifst ‘violence’ and the Old English haest ‘strife’. The word speed comes from Old English spoed and had nothing to do with swiftness; it meant ‘success, prosperity, good fortune or advancement’. The expression Godspeed originally meant ‘May God give you success’. Speed eventually came to mean ‘go fast’ from the 1300s.

A popular motto used by the Roman emperors Augustus and Titus was Festina lente ‘make haste slowly’, similar in meaning to ‘more haste, less speed’. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, the emperor Augustus deplored rashness in his military commanders.

Coins minted for Augustus had various images of fast/slow symbols, such as a crab and butterfly, a hare in a snail shell, a tortoise with a sail, and a dolphin entwined around an anchor. It was adopted by the Renaissance printer Aldus Manutius, as his printer’s mark.

So, bear this in mind while solving your puzzles amid this festive season – find the answers quickly, but slow down!

Speedy Puzzling!