This is a story about learning a new word, but it’s also a story about the path I took to learn this word.
The word is “usufruct.” When I first read it, I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce it.
It all started when I was listening to “Court Appointed,” one of my favorite podcasts. The granddaughter of one of the hosts was on. Charlie is six and quite opinionated. She said that anyone with a single-digit age should make the laws. The host, her grandfather, said that Thomas Jefferson had a similar idea.
I hadn’t heard of this before but didn’t pursue it. Then Hubby and I were enjoying a beautiful evening around our burn pile, and I brought up this idea of each generation making new laws. Hubby is a lawyer, and he had never heard of this idea or that Jefferson had suggested it.
So I googled and found that it was true. The following passage is from The Society for US Intelectual History.
In September 1789 Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison from Paris that “the question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water.” In making his own answer, Jefferson famously declared that “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living,” that “by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another,” and furthermore that “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law… Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.”
This idea did not make it into the Constitution, which is why Hubby hadn’t heard of it. I thought it was an interesting bit of history, but what the heck did the word “usufruct” mean? It was completely foreign to me, so of course, I had to look it up.
Usufruct is a legal word (which is why I hadn’t heard of it.) According to Merriam-Webster, it means:
the legal right of using and enjoying the fruits or profits of something belonging to another
A good example of this is if a man gives his house to his children upon his death, but his wife can live in the house as long as she lives. That makes sense to me, but I doubt I’ll ever have a chance to use this word in normal conversation.
Of course, Jefferson did, so who knows. I’m more fascinated by how I went from a podcast to a new word. Life is fascinating. I hope you learn something new today.