To interdict

According to my computer's Oxford American Dictionary, the word interdict is related to interdictum, a Latin past participial form of the infinitive interdicere, to interpose or dictate by decree. It carries with it a linguistic sense of a past prohibition against a grammatical object. Not object as in thing, but object as in Lacan's parle-etre.

Tedious? Perhaps. It speaks, however, to a key reason for my tattoos. They represent, to me, an interdiction against suicide. The locations are symbolic and maybe a little tawdry. (I've never slit my wrists.) Of course, you can't just going around saying the first thing that comes to your mind when someone asks, "What do your tattoos mean?" How awkward that would be.

Still. Something between remembrance and moratorium (mora, not morus). If I had one wish, truly, it would be not to be sick. Being sick, I'm not good at conveying my emotions, and I'm terrible at figuring out how to respond to others' emotions. (Those traits contribute to some people's sense that I'm odd.) So instead of trying to find a bigger, better way to tell Sam that I'm sorry, I'm writing about etymology, itself originating from the neuter singular adjectival form etumon, or true.