Merits
The word merit , meaning " merit ", was borrowed from the synonymous French mérite in the 16th century . The French word goes back to the Latin meritum . Meritum , meaning “merit, good work”, is also a foreign word in German.
Merits are only spoken of in the plural, it is a plural tantum . The word can be found in phrases like "... has earned (the) merits ..." and is now considered out of date by some dictionaries.
The Order of Merit Pour le Mérite ("for merit") was donated by Frederick the Great (1712–1786) and was, along with the Order of the Black Eagle, the most important award in Prussia .
In the 18th century, so-called merit tables were used as a pedagogical means of recognition or disapproval in the schools of the philanthropic reform movement ( philanthropists ). These were boards on which the current performance of the students was publicly listed in the form of a ranking. Competition and ambition should be encouraged in this way.
In the second half of the 20th century, the British sociologist Michael Young coined the term “ meritocracy ” for a society based on achievement, talent and merit. In 1958 his utopian satire The Rise of the Meritocracy appeared (German title: Long live inequality: On the way to meritocracy) .
References and footnotes
- ^ Etymology according to Kluge Etymological Dictionary of the German Language , 24th edition, 2002
- ↑ Lemmatisiert von Mackensen - Large German Dictionary , 1977
- ↑ obsolete (very out of date) according to Kluge Etymological Dictionary of the German Language , 24th edition, 2002
- ^ Dietrich Benner, Friedrich Brüggen: History of Pedagogy. From the beginning of the modern era to the present. Stuttgart 2011, pp. 114–116