Like Mr. Howell, Trump Says, "Make It Fit"

I'm returning briefly to one of my all time favorite shows, "Gilligan's Island." In the show, for those unaware, Mr. Howell, properly known as Thurston Howell III, played by Cleveland's own Jim Backus, is a wealthy business tycoon and one of the castaways who were shipwrecked during a storm. Like a dictator, Mr. Howell is accustomed to giving orders, and subordinates hop to it. By the way, he sees subordinates as everyone else on the planet. Like Donald Trump (played by Donald Trump), Mr. Howell's feathers get ruffled when anyone dares to point out his mistakes or dares to oppose his desires. Even with his great wealth, Howell is always scheming to get even more wealth, sometimes at the expense of his fellow castaways and even of his own wife. Can you imagine Mr. Howell as president, with access to the U.S. Treasury, especially after getting rid of anyone who could investigate any dipping into the till or other lawbreaking? In spite of his faults, Mr. Howell could eventually come to a reality check on his behavior and then try to make amends, although it might take some stomping and pouting first. 

Anyway, in one episode the shipwrecked little group finds separate pieces of an ancient stone tablet with drawings they believe might disclose a secret way off the island. Like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, each person tries to put a piece of the puzzle together. When Mr. Howell tries, the piece doesn't fit, so he says, "Break off a piece and make it fit!" Rigging the truth will make any message of the stone tablet wrong and of no benefit.

Photo of Jim Backus as Thurston Howell III from the Turner Home Entertainment/Warner Brothers Complete Gilligan's Island First Season DVD Set

WORD HISTORY:
Sub-This is not the shortened form for "submarine," but rather the widely used prefix. "Sub-" is distantly related to "up," "open," "oft" and "often," all words from the Germanic roots of English, and it is also related to a whole range of words with the prefix "sub-" (examples: "subordinate," "submerge"), and to many words beginning with "sus" (examples: "suspect," "sustain"). "Sub-" goes back to the Indo European root "upo," with the notion of "from under" or "from below," "to go over/above." This gave Italic "supo," seemingly a prefixed form from Indo European, and this gave Latin "sub," with generally the same or similar meanings to the Indo European form. This was not borrowed by English so much directly, but rather along with a number of words from Latin or from Latin-based languages, and it was then used by English as a word forming prefix, like for "subway," a word with the Latin prefix, but with a Germanic base and an original English word (way).