Sometimes a thing will jump out at you, fresh, and let you see it like you never did before. It’s usually a fortunate occurrence, and with me it happens most often regarding words. Maybe that’s just because I pay so much attention to language. Maybe if I did textiles instead, I’d be noticing new things about warps or wefts.

Recently I misread the word “oblivious” for “obvious.” At my age a misread is easy to commit, especially if the light isn’t good. Since the meanings of obvious and oblivious are almost opposite, my misread made the encompassing sentence nonsensical, and the book I was reading did not aspire to nonsense. I had to stop. Peer. Read more slowly, closely.

Oh. Oblivious. And then I smiled. I’d never noted how similar those words were. I hadn’t until then realized that they differ only by “li.”

A day or two later, I looked them up.

Obvious comes via (wait for it) the Latin obvius (in the way so as to meet) from ob and via. Everyone agrees that via means “way.” But ob is a preposition, and a preposition always has more than one meaning. A preposition suggests position, relationship, intention even. In the word “obvious” it connotes “against,” like “run into” or like “if it were a snake it would bite you.” Obvious confronts you and smacks you in the face.

Oblivious means forgetful, abstracted, sometimes causing forgetfulness. A quick look at the Internet tells me the root is maybe from levis (Latin “smooth”) but I like the conjecture in my print dictionary: livere (Latin “to become black”). The ob suggests “over, against.” Together I’m getting the idea of encountering blackness, unconsciousness. It nags at me that livere is more the blackness of bruising (lividity) than of sleep. But still it packs more meaning than “smooth.”

Obvious is right in front of your face. You run into it. You can’t help sensing it.

Oblivion is what you never sense.