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Gee, is the moon not a perogy?
If you looked at the sky last Saturday, you saw the full moon at its perigee. This does not mean it was stuffed with potato, boiled and covered in sour cream. That would be the moon as perogy, which is unlikely, although there is a small crater in the moon’s northwest quadrant called Beer, which goes well with perogies.
The perigee is the closest point to Earth reached by a body orbiting this planet, just as the farthest point is the apogee. The perigee of the moon’s elliptical orbit is 356,410 kilometres from Earth, closer than the 406,697 kilometres at the apogee. Scientists say the moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of four centimetres a year, so you’d be wise to look at it now.
Perigee entered English by way of French from the modern Latin perigaeum, from the Greek perigeios, closely circling the Earth, from peri (near, around) and gaia (Earth). It belongs to an extended family of English words dependent on peri.
For instance, the perimeter, the outline of an area, comes from a Greek blending of peri (around) and metron (measure). The periscope combines peri and skopein, to observe. The period, a stretch of time, comes from peri and hodos (journey, course), in the sense of running a set distance. When it entered English, period specifically referred to the time a disease took from outbreak to resolution.
Since peri also had a hand in periphery (from the Greek periphereia, circumference, from peri and phero, to bear), permit me the peripheral note that the peregrine falcon gets its name not from the Greek but from the Latin per (through). Peregrine evolved from a blending of per and ager (field, land, country), which produced the Latin peregre, abroad.
There are two points of interest here. One is that when the Latin peregrinus (wandering stranger) entered English around 1200, it took the form of pelegrin, but nobody much liked the way that sounded. After years of slack pronunciation, pelegrin became pilgrim.
The second point is that the peregrine falcon got its name not because it travels, but because falconers would catch the bird in flight instead of stealing it from the nest, the way they did with eyas falcons. The Latin word for nest was nidas, which became niais in Old French. Thus, a nest in early English was “a nias.” But inattentive people began associating the “n” with the article instead of with the noun, turning it into “an eias.” So eias became the Middle English word for nest, and the eyas falcon got its unusual name.
All right, back to business. While perigee hasn’t caught on outside astronomical circles, the apogee (the most distant point) is frequently used as a synonym for climax or culmination. Britain’s Daily Mail used it on March 18 in criticizing the see-through dress modelled by Kate Middleton at university and auctioned off this month for a princely sum. “It’s not even as if the dress is nice,” the column said. “I mean, just look at it. It’s utterly hideous, the apogee of what passes for fashion in student land.”
The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., used it sarcastically in a piece on March 14. Armed with a remote control, the writer said, he could watch Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity every hour of the day. “We are living, my friends, at the apogee of civilization.”
Apogee comes from the Greek apogaios, far from Earth, from apo (away from) and gaia (Earth). A similar-sounding word, apology, comes from apo and logos, speech. In other words, an apology is a way of distancing oneself from one’s words.
For instance, I apologize for straying so far from the initial discussion of last Saturday’s moon. Have a perogy on me. Choose the closest one.
Well ok then!
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Thanks Marcia and I'm sure you probably won't remember. 
Thanks A!!
