Commanded to Mandate

“I command you”

“He commanded…”

…it seems to be just a short linguistic leap from “command” to “mandate” …

“He mandated…”

and of course…

“The hospital had a vaccine mandate..”

A commandment is an “order given”. Many of us have probably heard about or seen the classic movie, “The Ten Commandments” and know about the commandments in the Bible, so there are religious and moral overtones to the word “commandment”.

Meanwhile, “mandate” is, “…a command from a leader you can’t refuse” (that sounds pretty strong!) though Merriam-Webster points out that now the use of this word is more by institutions rather than leaders.

If you look into the etymology of these words; at some points they are used interchangeably and at other points “mandate” is used to define “command”. The Latin word “mandatum” means “something commanded” . The Latin “commandare” means “expressing intense force”.

We’ve seen and heard about the angry pushback on vaccine mandates resulting in public demonstrations. I can only speculate about how maybe this could have played out rather differently if instead we’d called them:

vaccine requirements

health and safety requirements

or

a vaccination license

Words matter…but of course, it’s a little late now.

Source: Merriam-Webster.com