I like the way that the Oxford Dictionary of English defines tacit.

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They say “understood or implied, without being stated.”  So a tacit agreement is an understanding that is communicated by a look or gesture.

There is a problem with tacit communication though. The observer may think they understand a look or gesture but since no one says anything it’s quite possible they got it wrong.

In some cases tacit communication is actually against the will of one of the parties.  A tacit admission of guilt for instance.

The roots of tacit don’t relate to understanding or implication but to that lack of spoken communication.  In Latin tacere meant to be silent.  That’s why someone who doesn’t say much is called taciturn.

Just as tacit has shifted its meaning from “silent” to “implied,” the related word reticent has also shifted meaning.

I see plenty of references of people reticent to break the law or reticent to sign a document. These seem to take reticent as meaning “hesitant.” Originally only people who refused to talk were reticent, from the same Latin root as tacit.

Back in 1605 when Sir Francis Bacon first used tacit in English it meant “unspoken,” but the first sentence it appears in comes across as a little confusing.

He’s writing to King James in a dedication to a book and he is trying to set the stage before laying out his ideas.

He tells the King that he wants to avoid the interruption of tacit objections.

In most contexts a tacit objection couldn’t be an interruption since a tacit objection is silent.  Yet in Bacon’s book he feels he must first disassemble arguments that others have made that the reader might remember.

Because Francis Bacon is such a towering figure in history I was surprised that I haven’t mentioned him before at podictionary.

He’s remembered for quite an intimidating range of accomplishments and I’ll see if I can talk about some of them in future podictionary episodes, but today I want to extract a little more of his writings to the King to show that even the most accomplished of men seems to have to do a little boot licking from time to time.

Here’s some of how he introduces the book to the King:

I have been touched, yea, and possessed with an extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the Philosophers call intellectual the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of you memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution and I have often thought, that of all persons living that I have known, your Majesty…

Blah, blah, blah, he goes on for pages like this.

… as the Scripture saith of the wisest king That his heart was as the sands of the sea ; which though it be one of the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of smallest and finest portions … your Majesty’s manner of speech[is] indeed prince-like, flowing as from a fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into nature’s order…

It seems to me that Francis Bacon’s speech flowed like a fountain, which means he was neither tacit, taciturn nor reticent.