Awake 2018

Bellwether is defined as �one that takes the lead or initiative� or �an indicator
of trends.� It�s in this second sense that you�ll see the word pop up frequently in
years that lead up to midterm elections. That�s because pundits and analysts try to
read the polls and results from those elections to see if they might predict
something about the sentiment of the country regarding the presiding administration
and how it might pan out for the presidential election two years later.

Because it suggests the act of forecasting, one might be inclined to think that
bellwether has something to do with weather�think of a trial balloon, which is
something meant to test the public�s sentiment on an issue and which alludes to an
object that is affected by atmospheric conditions.

But the wether in bellwether has nothing to do with meteorology. Instead, it has to
do with sheep. Wether is the term for a castrated ram, and a bellwether is the
sheep selected among the flock to be fitted with a bell. The sound of the bell in
the distance would indicate to a shepherd where the flock had roamed.

The modern Greeks pronounce it as a V consonant, and confound three vowels, and
several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner
maintained by penal statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the monosyllable
represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better
evidence than a bishop or a chancellor.