Q&A: The origin of ‘commute’

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, back to work…

Q: Hi AWC, I thought of a question while commuting here today.

A: Good for you.

Q: And the question is to do with the word “commute”. Why do we use it for travelling to and from work, but ALSO for “commuting a sentence” in legal speak?

A: That’s a fair question – after all, the two meanings do seem rather different.

Q: Exactly!

A: But when we look into the origins, they’re actually more intertwined than you might think.

Q: Reminds me of a young couple I saw on the train this morning.

A: Fun. So, the original verb “commute” goes all the way back to the 1400s, and simply meant “to change or transform” from the Latin “commutare”. It’s the “–mutare” part that meant transforming, and we still see this in other words like “mutate” or “mutant”.

Q: Ninja turtles!

A: Well, this was the time of Michaelangelo, Leonardo and so on.

Q: So originally “commute” just meant to transform?

A: It still does! Look up the Macquarie Dictionary and the many listings are riddled with variations on changing and substitution.

Q: Okay, so what about the legal meaning of making something less severe?

A: Well it doesn’t really mean “less severe” – rather it’s exchanging one sentence for another. So we’re still using the changing/transforming definition. An example might be that “her ten-year sentence was commuted to five years” or a “death sentence commuted to a life imprisonment”. 

Q: When did this start being used?

A: According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the idea of a legal commutation first appears in the 1630s. 

Q: I get this so far – it’s all about changing or transforming. But surely on a daily commute, we aren’t really exchanging anything.

A: That young couple certainly were.

Q: Hilarious. But saliva aside, is it really just as simple as changing locations from home to work?

A: Not entirely. The word didn’t come along till the 19th century, and was preceded by another important meaning in 1795, when “commute” came to mean “to change one kind of payment into another”.

Q: So cash for a train ticket?

A: Exactly! In those days, it might have been three pennies for a coach ride. But yeah, the act of commuting became a transaction – and an extension of that original “exchange” meaning.

Q: Hmmm, okay. But we still seem to be a long way from our final destination.

A: That’s because you haven’t bought a season ticket yet!

Q: Sorry, what?

A: In the decades that followed, to “commute” came to mean exchanging not just one payment for another, but a number of successive payments. It would revolutionise regular travel and resulted in the first “commutation ticket” in 1848 – essentially a season pass on a railroad or streetcar line. 

Q: Ahhhh, no more fumbling for pennies!

A: That’s right. With your shiny new commutation ticket, you’d pay for a bunch of travel upfront and then sit back and enjoy the bumpy, Victorian-era ride.

Q: When did people start saying they were “commuting” to work?

A: That took a few more decades. By the mid 1860s, the word “commuter” was first applied to those with such a ticket. And by 1889 “commute” had become a verb meaning “to go back and forth to work”. 

Q: I notice people use it as a noun too – such as “the new house will mean a longer commute” or “I saw two youngsters intertwined on my commute today”. 

A: Haha, that’s true. It has become the name for the journey itself. This was however much newer – about 1954 according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Q: So to recap, “commute” is all about changing or transforming. Whether you’re changing the severity of a sentence or exchanging money to give you a ticket that helps you change locations each day.

A: That’s it. There is even a device called a “commutator” in many electric motors that has the job of changing alternating current to direct current.

Q: AC/DC huh? Maybe it’s used when people commute on the Highway to Hell!

A: You’re very funny, but don’t you have a train to catch?

Q: I’m commuting that sentence to: “You’re very funny.”

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