Word Review: Optimal - [Purposefully Left Blank]
I missed updating the blog last week, which wasn’t very optimal of me. Nonetheless, I have spent copious undefined years studying words and this Word Review series aims to review some of them. Do we really need all of these different words? Is that really..optimal for us as English speakers? Well, let’s find out, starting with the one word I keep using in this introduction. Of course, we will be rating “Optimal” on a scale unique to the word in a continuation of my life long work to study language, words, and their silly little meanings.
Ya Basics
Optimal. I suppose the best definition will be the one that is most succinct, but let us start as always with rounding up a few attempts to put meaning to the word from our list of usual favorites.
Oxford Languages Dictionary has this to say of optimal: best or most favorable; optimum.
In spite of that meaning, here are two more definitions:
From Merrium-Webster: most desirable or satisfactory : optimum.
From Cambridge Dictionary: best; most likely to bring success or advantage.
I tried to look up optimal to see what it would look like.
It is clear from these definitions that optimal is a good word; it exudes qualities of being the best, the most favorable. It is describing processes with outcomes that are to be desired, if not coveted. Optimal exhales creme de la creme for it is made of the stuff.
An interesting thing happens when one wishes to turn this top tier adjective into a noun to describe by which a process can become optimal. I speak, of course, of “optimization.”
To be brief, the definition of one “optimization” brings in an entirely different connotation. See for yourself, as defined by Merrium-Webster: “an act, process, or methodology of making something (such as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible.”
And again in the Oxford Language Dictionary, “the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource.
Did you catch it? Whereby “optimal” describes the best or most favorable, the process of optimization only strives to be close to being the best. It’s subtle, but it’s there in the Merriam-Webster definition, “making something…as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible.” I’ve placed an emphasis on “as” there to highlight my point. Optimization is a process to mimic optimal, to approach it as closely as can be, without truly reaching it. For there are always further optimizations to make. A perfect system cannot exist.
I think the Oxford Language Dictionary supports this by undercutting “the best” with “the most effective use of a situation or resource.”
It’s an interesting phenomenon. Optimal is the most favorable. The best. But when put into the noun form, we can only strive toward it - the meaning has shifted out of obtainable grasp.
I’m open to counter arguments over semantics and syntax here, but I’d argue that if optimization wasn’t supposed to carry on a connotation of striving for perfection in favor of achieving perfection, there wouldn’t be so many qualifiers and undercuttings placed so purposefully in its definition.
That is to say, why doesn’t the definition of optimization read: the action of making the best use of a situation or resource - or - an act of making something fully perfect?
Etymology aka A Best Start
If we want to shine a light on the beginning of optimal, we must turn to Latin. Optimum, in name - a familiar name from the definitions of optimal we found above.
Optimum is the neuter single of optimus, a description I do not understand, but optimus means “best, very good” and is a superlative of bonus meaning “good.”
It seems even in its origin, there is some room for interpretation as “best” and “very good” do not mean the same thing in modern English, although optimus being a superlative of bonus would evidence that the “very good” is a humble version of “best.”
This is the best Optimus for my money.
Unfortunately, in my brief time studying etymology, when a word is rooted in Latin, the explorations get a bit (and I’m sorry to say this to Latin) boring. There’s not usually a lot of flavor there - it’s a word carried over from another language whose origins we can only suppose.
Here’s the full entry for “optimal” from etymology online in evidence to that statement:
“1879, from Latin optimum, neuter singular of optimus “best, very good” (used as a superlative of bonus “good”), perhaps (Watkins) related to ops “power, resources” (in which case the evolution is from “richest” to “the most esteemed,” thus from PIE root *op- “to work, produce in abundance”); or perhaps it is related to ob “in front of” (de Vaan), with superlative suffix *-tumos.”
The English usage of “optimal” followed this definition not soon after in 1885 with the same definition back then as we’d use it today, so not much wiggle room there, although it should be said again that the English usage of the word connotes “best or most favorable,” with very little wiggle room for interpretation of a “very good” like the Latin definition.
What a Latin origin does that a Germanic or Proto-Language does not is open up the possibilities for further adoptions of a word into different romance languages, which can shed some further light on the difference between optimal and optimization, the can of worms we have untinned for this particular review.
Turning to the French, we have a very straightforward adoption of the word in the form of the French “optimal” (it’s very similar) with the same exact definition so why did I bother mentioning it?
This is what French optimal looks like.
Where things heat up is in the German adoption. Here we are presented with the German “optimal” (okay, they spell it the same, all of them, everyone spells it the same, but it’s different) carrying not one but three distinct definitions:
optimal (perfect)
optimal (as good as possible under a given condition)
very good
Oh, what just happened? Suddenly, we have a difference in definition - room for imperfections. Yes, perfection still exists and it is the first listed definition meaning it is the primary definition, but here we have “as good as possible under a given condition” and a return of that “very good” from the Latin.
I’m going to venture a guess based on this evidence alone before I look up the etymology of “optimization” and say that the word was first popularized in Germany and later adapted by English. Okay, I’m excited now. Let’s look it up.
Without editorializing, here is the origin of optimization according to etymology online and backed up by the Oxford English Dictionary:
optimization(n.)
1857, "act or process of making optimal," noun of action from optimize.
Noun of action from optimize?! Wait, so it’s not the noun of the adjective form optimal, then? Okay, well, let’s look at optimize, certainly that has a root in the German definition of the Latin root.
1844, "to act as an optimist, take the most hopeful view of a matter," a back-formation from optimist. Meaning "to make the most of, develop to the utmost" is attested by 1857.
“To act as an optimist?” I feel we’re getting further from my theory and at the risk of being completely wrong, let’s take a look at “optimist” then.
1759, "one who believes in metaphysical optimism," from French optimiste (1752); see optimism + -ist. Meaning "person of a hopeful disposition" is recorded by 1766.
I got nothing…
Right, so, French in origin, one who believes in metaphysical optimism, which to save us all some time, is the belief that (originally) this world of all worlds is best of all worlds, which is to say very far from where we started with the theory that “optimization” borrowed from the German definition of the Latin optimum. Oh, boy.
In the earliest use of “optimize,” one was not making a process more effective or better, one was making the world closer to the idea of a perfect world, one that is all good. An optimist is one who believes that the world can be all good and would take steps to further optimize the world into being the version they believed in. This would be described as “optimization,” actions taken to bring the world closer to the “optimal” state, one that is all good - perfect.
Later, mathematicians would begin trying to perfect equations and would borrow these terms, “optimize” and “optimization,” improving on the perfect language of math that leaves no room for interpretation and borrowing on the philosophical meaning of optimal and from there the word would enter the world of manufacturing, of processing speeds, of algorithms, etc.
I guess having a Latin root didn’t make for too boring of an origin and we were thrown for a loop there with optimize and optimist coming from the French philosophers, but this has all been a very big detour in the grand scheme of my scope for this review.
When Would I Ever Use This Word?
The impetus for this Word Review is a recurring, recursive, probably near obsessive and intrusive thought I have on a semi-weekly basis: am I living my life optimally? Is the life I am living a good enough result of the steps I have taken to get me here, or have I, to borrow some parlance from the gaming sphere, misplayed my hand somewhere in the rounds of the game of life?
A lot of my thinking is shaped from my lifelong hobby of playing video games. When you start a new game, you know very little about how the systems and rules of the game work, but you learn how the game works the more you play. You can play through an entire game and wish to play it through again. When you do, you start from an advanced knowledge state - you know how the game will go, how to play the game. You’ve mastered the basics and can conquer the early parts of the game in a way you never could before - you’ve optimized your play. You can play through the game optimally now that you have knowledge of what comes next.
This type of thinking is infectious. There is something truly addictive about perfecting aspects of especially challenging games. Whereas before, you merely skimmed by doing your best, armed with knowledge and skills of having practiced, you can now pass through the game with flying colors. Video games reward players who optimize their play - there is satisfaction in achieving the optimal.
The problem that I run into time and time again is that life is not a video game. There is no starting over, not truly, as the clock only goes in one direction. Knowing what I know now about my life cannot help me in the earlier stages of my life as time just doesn’t work that way.
But there is the infectious itch of wanting to live my life optimally. To live it to a perfect degree and achieve the highest quality of life possible. I can’t deny that these thoughts linger in my mind as I wash dishes or drive home. What chores can I optimize to make my life better?
How can I be optimal?
And the answer is simple - you can’t. Not truly. And why would you want to live an optimal life? The stress alone would be enough to drastically shorten it. A perfect game is something all baseball pitchers strive for, sure, but a perfect season would most likely kill a human being in striving toward it.
That little gap, the wiggle room for interpretation between “optimal” and “optimization” might have more roots in the philosophical origins of the word than I researched - as an optimal world, one that is perfect, would be a little bit boring. A perfect world, or anything that has reached the state of being optimal, has no room to grow. Nothing more to achieve. Nothing else to improve.
Focus less on being perfect and more on the processes of making your life better - the journey is the destination - the process is the result.
So when would you use optimal? Probably very rarely. I think typically I hear “optimal” in regards to outcomes that weren’t stellar. “The results were far from optimal.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Oh, yeah, the results were optimal.” So maybe keep it in that lane, as a negative. Because it kind of is a negative.
The Optimal Scale
I think you’ll find in my writing a few recurring, recursive themes or moves. One of them seems to be that I change the focus of a piece halfway through from the title to something else that I discover in the writing. A good writer would then go back and change the beginning to fit where they discovered the end to be, but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’ll leave it as is so you can see the process, the thoughts, the recursion from which this blog gets its name.
To change this would be to try to optimize it, bring it as closely to perfection as possible, but from what we’ve discovered, that’d be boring. Let’s reveal in the chaos and the mess of it all and appreciate that we can still land on our feet with a salient point.
As for the rating? What else could the score for optimal be than one that is optimal?
10/10. No notes.
