Origins – Ways Of Writing

Proscribe, to forbid, is commonly used for medical, religious, or legal prohibitions.
A doctor proscribes a food, drug, or activity that might prove harmful to the patient. The church proscribes, or announces a proscription against, such activities as may harm its parishioners. The law proscribes behaviour detrimental to the public welfare.
The derivation is the prefix pro-, before, plus scribe, scriptus, to write. In ancient Roman times, a man’s name was written on a public bulletin board if he had committed some crime for which his property or life was to be forfeited; Roman citizens in Good standing would thereby know to avoid him. In a similar sense, the doctor writes down those foods or activities that are likely to commit crimes against the patient’s health – in that way the patient knows to avoid them.
Scribo, scriptus is the building block of scores of common English words: scribe, scribble, prescribe, describe, subscribe, script, the Scriptures, manuscript, typescript, etc. Describe uses the prefix de-, down – to describe is, etymologically, ‘to write down’ about. Manuscript, combining manus, hand (as in manual labour), with scriptus, is something handwritten – the word was coined before the invention of the typewriter. The Scriptures are holy writings. To subscribe (as to a magazine) is to write one’s name under an order or contract (sub, under, as in subway, subsurface, etc.); to subscribe to a philosophy or a principle is figuratively to write one’s name under the statement of such philosophy or principle.
To inscribe is to write in or into (a book, for example, or metal or stone). A postscript is something written after (Latin post, after) the main part is finished.
For Scientific english editing and Medical Writing Services visit www.manuscriptedit.com