the.com/clerk
the keeper of the record, quietly running civilization one stamp at a time
means A person whose job is to keep records, handle paperwork, or attend to routine office or sales duties.
from From Latin 'clericus' (clergyman), itself from Greek 'klerikos,' relating to the clergy. In the early medieval world the clergy were often the only people who could read and write, so 'clerk' came to mean a literate person, then specifically one who keeps records and accounts — a memory of the days when bookkeeping and holiness lived under the same roof.
- word root
- derives from cleric, since literate monks did the paperwork
- court clerks
- administer oaths and guard every official case file
- supreme court
- clerks draft opinions that shape national law
- old spelling
- British pronunciation rhymes with bark, not jerk
- first job
- countless careers begin behind a humble counter
bob cratchit — charles dickens' character in a christmas carol, the underpaid clerk working for ebenezer scrooge
bartleby the scrivener — herman melville's 1853 story about a wall street copyist clerk who passively resists with 'i would prefer not to'
melville's wall street — 1850s new york financial district where legions of actual clerks copied documents by hand before typewriters