Recently Otto and Henry discovered the MAD show on cartoon network, and that led to the original Mad magazine, much to their parents’ delight.

Particularly popular with them is the “Spy vs Spy” series, on TV and also in print. Obviously some of its charm is in its wordlessness.

The subject sent Otto into a verbal chapter on “versus.” He introduced pairs like Lego robot vs Playmobil farmer or the surreal toothpaste vs balloon. And that got me to thinking …

“Versus” is Latin for “turned, against,” and it signifies a battle or conflict between two opponents. I think it was originally abbreviated as just v, but some time somehow the s got added: we most often see vs.

My dictionary says it’s the past participle of the Latin vertere (to turn, change, overthrow, destroy). It seems to have first been noticed in the mid 15^th century, but it goes back to the Proto Indo-European wert and the base wer, which led to the Old English wyrd which is another form of weird (April 27).

In law and sports it still means a battle. But conversationally it’s starting to become equal to “or.” As in “bath vs shower?” Or “Chinese food tonight vs Italian?” Neither of those indicate a battle. But “versus” has a secondary definition – “considered as an alternative to” – which can be expressed “as opposed to,” and that phrase maintains the true sense of the word.