It's a Sign

Ancient Romans used the word signum in a similar manner to the way we use sign today, although their use was much more limited.

These signa were physical indications that meant something else. Nobody cared much about the object itself, but instead it was all about the thing it meant. Think of a signal fire—”signa” gives us both sign and signal—and you have the idea.

Well… there are some notable exceptions to nobody caring much about the signa. The reason? Some of them were incredibly well crafted and valuable in their own rights. If you lost a military standard (banner), you might face a severe punishment, possibly even death. Even worse, your entire unit could be decimated—one man in ten killed to make a point.

A signum could also be something a person didn’t deliberately make. If you had a scar on your leg, that could be a sign of a battle that had taken place. This is where things get metaphorical and interesting: they could also be portents from the gods, signa of their displeasure or boredom.

Today, if you hear the phrase it’s a sign, this is probably the meaning. In one sense, not much has changed since Roman times, except maybe the names of the god(s). Signs these days come from the likes of Elvis Pressley and the Virgin Mary, each showing up in various food items that ended up on eBay.

Nowadays, if you hear “It’s a sign!” exclaimed, there’s a good chance the person is making a joke. Remember those portents from Rome’s gods people saw everywhere? Today, we often use a bit more deduction when determining proximate causes for things.

We ascribe logical reasons for things instead of explaining them with drunken deities who might or might not like what you’re doing. When we make the claim that something is a sign, it’s more often than not confirmation bias at work. We say we see a sign that reinforces what we’re doing. How convenient!

Superstition is easy to make fun of today, but if we’re honest with ourselves, it was this very power of our imagination that allowed us to start using metaphors in the first place. By imagining some divine reason behind earthquakes, lightning strikes, and comets, we stumbled onto something really important: that the everyday world we experience has fantastical causes.

Take earthquakes. It’s not two gods wrestling, but it really is two tectonic plates grappling with one another, in a manner of speaking.

Comets aren’t really messages from the divine realm, but they really can tell us a great deal about what’s out there in the vast cosmos. Lightning isn’t a weapon thrown by Thor when he gets angry, but instead a manifestation of a deeply important and powerful force that we’ve since learned how to harness.

These might not have been signs from the heavens, but they were certainly signs of a deeper understanding that was just outside of our grasp.