Juan Carlos I does not like the term “emeritus”. He tells it in his memoirs, published for the first time in French. I translate from page 423: «The press has given me the title of ‘king emeritus’, like ‘professor emeritus’ or ‘pope emeritus’. (…) I imagine that the press, to avoid confusion between me and my son, invented the title ‘king emeritus’ (which actually only resulted in ‘el emeritus’). I don’t like this designation. It is prestigious in American or French universities, but in Spain it is prestigious.” much less. The Spanish Royal House should create a title for kings or queens who abdicate (because I imagine that one day the situation will arise);
“Emeritus” comes from Latin emeritus, which in turn derives from the verb mereo (deserve). And one of its meanings is linked to military service: “to be a soldier”. (fair mere: be a cavalry soldier; pedibus merere: be an infantry soldier). Therefore, in the same word the duty of service and the merit of fulfilling it are united.
THE AND e-merit comes from the initial addition of former to the participle merit. One of the meanings of this Latin preposition denotes cause (formerly purple: due to injury). With it, ex merit (and from there emeritus) It meant “by merit”. And it applied to soldiers who were starting to receive the pensions… that they had deserved.
It is striking that a prestigious word in several languages, starting – as we have seen – with Latin, has suddenly been devalued in Spanish in recent years. This is what hurts Juan Carlos I.
And this certainly appears to have happened. But it has not lost prestige when applied to professors emeritus, for example, nor to the queen emeritus, but only, coincidentally, in the perception that the word communicates when associated with the father of the current King.
Words denote because they mean, but connote because they are contaminated. For example, there is nothing wrong with the “middleman”… in principle. This is the name given to someone who facilitates goods from one person to reach another via payment. But we have seen so many intermediaries who have enriched themselves immorally (albeit legally), that the word already sounds suspicious to us. And the intermediaries themselves have stopped appreciating it. This is why many prefer to be “agents”, “brokers” (insurance or stock exchange), “liaison”… The same thing happens with the term “commissioner”. Even if someone gets the right commission, they will choose to call their job something different on their resume.
This is what happens with “emeritus”: there is nothing wrong, but it has been used many times in a negative context: precious gifts from Arab dictatorships, tax evasion, praise for Franco, shooting of noble elephants…
For this reason we associate the expression “the emeritus” with others that could very well replace it (in this case with great disadvantage for the aforementioned) but remained in the collective subliminal rearguard.
This latent presence is not expressed but felt, because the words hidden below the threshold of perception can nevertheless be activated in the subconscious, and thus exert a connotative influence on the terms that move them. If they invent another word for Juan Carlos I, over time it will be equally devalued. So it’s better for him to assume that they call him “the emeritus” (since he had some merit too), before things get worse and many people with an angrier memory start calling him “the demerit”.
