clerk

   This word was originally the same as ‘cleric’. The change of meaning to ‘one who keeps written records’ and the like came about because at one time the members of the clergy tended to be the only literate people in the district. It was they who kept records of births, marriages, deaths, and other parochial happenings. When possible they transferred these duties to lay-clerks. Already by the thirteenth century ‘clerk’ had come to mean one who could read and write, regardless of his religious status. The word is now generally used in its lay sense, of course, but is not used as a professional title other than in special circumstances, or to special officials such as a clerk of the court. In Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding, a magistrate addresses his clerk by his title when asking for his advice. Parson Adams tells a story, a page or two later, about the young men who competed for the place of parish clerk and ended by having a near-fatal dispute. The word has its modern sense when it is used vocatively in A Salute to the Great McCarthy, by Barry Oakley. A young Australian wife is accusing her husband of being a failure. She sarcastically calls him ‘Mr Excitement’, then moves on to ‘Suburban shit-kicker! Clerk! Nobody! I married a nobody!’