When Groucho Marx once asked a female contestant on his TV show, "You Bet Your Life," to describe her family, she replied, "Three children, one adult and one adulteress."

Oops.

In erroneously using "adulteress" to mean "female adult," this woman was clearly being unfaithful — not to her husband, but to the true origins of the words "adult" and "adultery." That's because, etymologically speaking, "adultery" has nothing to do with "adult."

"Adult" comes from the Latin root "adultus," the past participle of "adolescere," the same root that gives us "adolescence." While "adolescere" meant "to grow up," "adultus" meant "grown up."

"Adultery" springs from the Latin "adulterare," meaning "to corrupt, pollute." "Adulterare" is a combination of the Latin "ad" and "alter" (other), the same root that gives us "alternative." So "adulterate" means to introduce something "other," making it impure.

Nitpicking linguists say the word "adulterer" has itself been adulterated. They claim the unmarried lover in this not-so-right triangle is NOT an adulterer, but instead a mere hypotenuse.

But other "linguistic Pythagoreans" disagree. By their calculations, the error of the "other woman" or "other man," whether married or not, is equal to the error of the base spouse, which makes that interloper an "adulterer" too.

Even the normal, everyday word "adult" has been tainted by controversy. For centuries, "adult" was just a nice, average, middle-aged word who took pride in himself for being mature and responsible.

Then, sometime during the 1960s, he suddenly found himself being used to describe salacious books, movies and videotapes, as in "adult entertainment." Once merely bald, "adult" had now become ribald.

During the 2010s, "adult" was adulterated again when people started using it as a verb meaning "to act as an adult," e.g., "How do I adult?" and using the gerund "adulting" to mean "acting as an adult," e.g., paying bills, doing laundry.

The latter word was popularized by Kelly Williams Brown's 2013 book "Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps." (Maybe it's just me, but 468 steps, even easy-ish ones, seem like a steep climb, especially if step No. 353 is cleaning the cat's litter box.)

Now the word "adult" finds itself making a steep climb. Like many adults themselves, it's been tainted by scandal and buffeted by change. Does "adult" have a different meaning than it did 72 years ago when Groucho's TV show premiered?

You bet your life!

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His new book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to [email protected] or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Photo credit: moshehar at Pixabay