Before the 1700’s, if you were tried by an English court for a crime you did not commit, and if your lawyer could prove that you were nowhere near the crime scene when the crime was committed, there was a problem. Oh, the problem wasn’t that you couldn’t be acquitted. The problem was with the verbal rigamarole that the judge had to go through before he could decide whether to release you.
According to early court transcripts, the judge would ask: “Do you have a valid explanation, that the court would recognize, which proves that it would have been impossible for you to have committed this offense because you can demonstrate that when the crime occurred, it would not have been possible for you to have been present to commit it?”
That’s a total of fifty words, taking the judge about 25 seconds to say them.
Imagine the joy of eighteenth-century English judges when, with the addition of one simple word to the language in about 1710, they reduced their question to four words, taking a mere two seconds: “What is your alibi?”
“Alibi” is one of our English words that is not derived from a Latin word but is the Latin word itself, exactly as it was created over 2,000 years ago. And its meaning is beautifully succinct: “Elsewhere.” All the judge required from you was proof that you were indeed “Elsewhere” when the crime was committed.
And a linguistic cousin to “alibi” is the Latin word “alias.” Even their meanings are similar — “elsewhere” for alibi and “otherwise” for alias. For example, Elvis Presley’s manager, whose real name was Andreas van Kuijk, adopted the alias “Colonel Tom Parker.” And the Dutch spy Margaretha McLeod used the alias “Mata Hari.” In both cases, their real names became obscure compared to what they were “otherwise” known as. Even on the rare occasions when their actual names are used, they are followed by “aka” (also known as) and then their more famous aliases.
It occurs to me that our passage through life is symbolically bookended by these two useful Latin words: alias and alibi.
One reason aliases developed is that, unfortunately, names are bestowed upon us at birth, long before our unique personalities develop and declare exactly who we really are to the world. I may be “Elliot“ by given name, but If you know me at all, you know I am “Elliot, aka Mouthy.” Even the planet upon which we spend our lives, with water covering more than 70% of the surface, could have been named more accurately “Earth, aka Ocean.”
By the time we are reaching the opposite end of our journey from birth, we should be recognizing, more and more, the poignant relevance of “alibi” to our brief lives. I am not referring to its legal meaning of “providing protection from false charge.” I am thinking of its original Latin definition—“elsewhere.”
For isn’t it true that we humans have always stood under that one-word banner? There was a Forever occurring before we arrived here — from “ elsewhere”— and, after we depart, there shall be another Forever. Although major religions have very different views of where our after lives will be spent, they basically agree that our stay here on earth is but a twinkle in time; our permanent home is Elsewhere.
The idea of Heaven or Hell as our permanent Elsewhere has resonated through the ages. But now that 38% of Americans describe themselves as unchurched or otherwise nonbelievers (with that number growing higher with the younger generations) may I humbly suggest a different Elsewhere for us, and yet one that does not contradict the religious one?
Scientists have known for a long time that we are made out of five predominant elements, the so-called “building blocks of life”: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur. But only recently have astronomers analyzed the elemental makeup of 150,000 stars and discovered that we humans and our galaxy share 97% of the same identical atoms. It was astronomer Carl Sagan who first called us “Star Stuff.” Stars reside within us, as we reside within them, a permanent Elsewhere for us, eons beyond the limitations of our little lives here.
Be this explained by believers as God’s design or by the nonreligious as just the metaphysical nature of the universe, our star-based selves definitely make us all brothers and sisters beneath our starry skin. As an American now living in a divided country, I take solace in knowing that all of us earthlings can’t help but display our star-spangled glamor, and — oh, say — can you see that even though our lives on earth are limited, perhaps where we all came from and where we return is “elsewhere”: everlasting, star-studded sublimity.