Curiosity started this. Where did the word ebb actually come from?
The tides. The back-washing from the shore—the low point in a cycle that always returns. Ebb and flow. Change, unpredictability, the rhythm of things.
But then: We never say we’re at a high ebb.
Always a low ebb. Only ever the retreat, never the return. The word has drifted so far from its tidal origins that we’ve quietly dropped one half of the cycle entirely. The flow disappeared. Only the ebb remained—and only the worst version of it.
We have a hundred phrases for when things are bad. We reach for them easily, without thinking. The low ebb. The dark place. The rough patch.
The high ebb? Where are the words?
Language does this. Words travel, meanings shift, and somewhere along the way we forget what we lost. They’re orphaned from their origins—in completely different ways, for completely different reasons. But gone the same.
Nick
